Universities, Regional Development and Economic Competitiveness: The Polish Case (CPP RPS 23/2011)

The paper explores the regional engagement of Polish universities and shows that the links between universities, their regions, and economic competitiveness taken for granted in the knowledge-economy policy discourse in advanced Western European economies may not fit Poland today. Universities in Poland matter but numerous other activators for economic growth are non-existent, and numerous inhibitors of economic growth, already overcome in knowledge-intensive economies, are still in force. Two decades of social and economic transformations (often referred to as “catching up with the West”, or “postcommunist transition” and “EU accession” periods) are not long enough to bridge the gap between two parts of Europe, and convergence processes between Poland and Western European economies may last much longer than initially assumed following the collapse of communism in 1989 (as in Barr 1994, Goodin 2003, Elster et al. 1998)