ArTiclE Monograph Regional Universities and the Learning Society: roles and infl uence on educational policy and practice

Th e roles of regional universities should not be underestimated in terms of their infl uence (economic, political, social and cultural) within the regions. Th is paper examines one regional university and uses that institution as an example to illustrate both the infl uence of the university on the region and the impact the regional university has been able to exert on educational policy and practice at the national level. Th is case study is analysed within the framework of Luhman’s theory of the socio-functional equilibrium. Th is theory explains that a social system has its own dynamic and, as a result, diff erent components and the relationships between these components, within and outside the system, will be harmonised into a self-organising or ‘autopoietic ’ system