Universities as ‘Drivers’ of Local and Regional Development

The society based on knowledge and innovation brings to the fore the role of universities as research and learning spaces, with the purpose for sustainable development at local, regional, national and global levels. Following this approach, we explore the capacity of spreading the knowledge and innovation capital in the North-West region of Romania between universities, the private sector and the public sector. Also, the study explores the role taken by the university system in Romania, locally and regionally, emphasizing what type of relationship defines the exchange of outputs and what are the most useful know-how transfer mechanisms from universities to the private and public sectors.The empirical research in this paper has shown that there is a growing relationship between universities – private sector – public sector, which is characterized as ‘in an incipient phase’, ‘based on urgent needs of the parties’. All of the actors involved in this triad want to develop the links between universities – private sector – public sector in communication, research, innovation and technology, and they suggest standardization and regulation of this interaction and developing a legal framework to correspond to the actual needs at local and regional levels.