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The contribution of students to regional economies

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Shiri Breznitz contributes to the regional innovation systems (RIS) literature by unpacking the RIS concept through exploring this specific aspect of university engagement in regional economies.

Image courtesy of interviewee. April 30, 2024

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The speaker, an economic geographer, has focused on regional economic development, particularly the biotechnology industry and its connection to universities. They emphasize the often-overlooked role of students in this context, noting the difficulty in measuring their impact on regional economies. This video video interest led the speaker and their colleagues to produce a special issue on the topic, highlighting findings from a conference session.

The speaker contrasts national and regional systems of innovation, noting that innovation often concentrates in specific regions rather than at a national level. They cite the 1998 study by Cook and Morgan on regional innovation systems, which outlines the importance of higher education and various stakeholders in fostering regional economic growth.

The discussion further delineates the short-term and long-term impacts of universities on local regions, with students contributing significantly in both timeframes. In the short term, students boost local economies through consumption, while in the long term, graduate students tend to stay in their university regions, potentially contributing to local entrepreneurship and technological innovation.

The issue also explores the geographic mobility of students and how this affects entrepreneurship, highlighting the need for regions to provide support and services to retain these individuals. Research presented in the special issue discusses the motivations behind students' decisions to stay in their university regions or return home, often influenced by their familiarity and connections.

In conclusion, the speaker stresses the importance of understanding students' roles in regional innovation systems and how regions can better harness the potential of these educated individuals to foster economic development.

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Here are several articles that explore themes similar to those in the video related to regional economic development, the role of universities, and the contributions of students to local economies, particularly in the convideo of innovation:

1. **“The Role of Universities in Regional Economic Development”** - This article examines the impact of universities on local economies and highlights how higher education institutions can drive innovation and entrepreneurship in their regions.

2. **“Regional Innovation Systems: The Contribution of Higher Education”** - This piece discusses the framework of regional innovation systems and emphasizes the central role of universities and research institutions in enhancing economic growth.

3. **“Student Mobility and its Impact on Local Economies”** - This article looks at how the geographic mobility of students affects regional economies, exploring factors that influence students’ decisions to remain in their university towns after graduation.

4. **“Bridging the Gap: Universities, Students, and Regional Development”** - This publication investigates how universities can better engage with students to leverage their skills and ideas for regional economic advancement.

5. **“The Economic Impact of Student Populations: Consumption and Beyond”** - This research assesses the short-term and long-term economic contributions of student populations to local economies, including their roles as consumers and future entrepreneurs.

6. **“Fostering Innovation: The Role of Higher Education Institutions in Regional Development”** - This article analyzes how institutions can create supportive environments that encourage innovation and retain talent within their regions.

7. **“Entrepreneurial Intentions of Graduates in University Towns: A Regional Perspective”** - This study explores how factors such as education, local resources, and social networks influence the entrepreneurial activities of graduates in their university regions.

8. **“The Influence of University-Industry Collaboration on Regional Innovation”** - This article focuses on the collaborative efforts between universities and industries and how these partnerships can stimulate regional economic growth.

Each of these articles delves into various facets of the relationship between higher education institutions, student populations, and regional innovation, similar to the topics introduced in your original video.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.185 --> 00:01.325
I'm an economic geographer,

00:01.425 --> 00:04.285
and for many years I've worked on regional economic

00:04.285 --> 00:06.365
development specifically at

00:07.305 --> 00:09.725
why certain industry develop in certain places.

00:10.505 --> 00:13.925
Um, and I've focused on the biotechnology industry

00:13.925 --> 00:17.565
for many years, and I've learned that it tends to center

00:17.565 --> 00:18.805
around universities.

00:20.105 --> 00:21.965
Um, so I studied the role

00:21.965 --> 00:24.765
of universities in regional economic development.

00:25.635 --> 00:28.295
Through this work, I realized,

00:29.585 --> 00:32.945
I would say somewhere middle of my career

00:33.575 --> 00:36.665
that we talk a lot about academic research.

00:37.125 --> 00:40.665
We talk a lot about, you know, startups

00:41.085 --> 00:42.865
and contract research.

00:43.645 --> 00:46.425
We don't talk as much about the role of students,

00:48.375 --> 00:52.915
and partly it's because it's very hard to be able

00:53.135 --> 00:55.595
and attribute the fact that students went

00:55.595 --> 00:59.755
to certain universities, on regional economies,

01:00.335 --> 01:03.675
and we don't really have a lot of data on students.

01:04.975 --> 01:09.515
Um, so that's the motivation of this special issue together

01:09.545 --> 01:11.475
with, professor Laton Smith

01:11.695 --> 01:16.155
and Akhi San, we all worked on this topic,

01:16.465 --> 01:19.155
including specifically regional economic development

01:19.155 --> 01:20.275
and the role of university.

01:21.055 --> 01:23.515
And, we did a session in,

01:23.915 --> 01:26.475
actually in regional studies conference in London,

01:27.735 --> 01:30.235
and we had several colleagues

01:30.235 --> 01:31.875
that wrote on the role of students.

01:32.535 --> 01:35.635
And we thought about the special issue as a good way to

01:36.225 --> 01:37.715
project all that knowledge.

01:38.665 --> 01:43.595
When we look at, innovation on national levels

01:43.855 --> 01:48.275
or regional level, the traditional, you know, theories

01:48.275 --> 01:51.435
that we analyze those through it are

01:51.435 --> 01:53.995
through either the national systems of innovation

01:55.375 --> 01:56.915
or the sub theory,

01:56.965 --> 01:58.875
which is the regional systems of innovation.

01:59.015 --> 02:01.075
So I'll start with national systems of innovation.

02:01.145 --> 02:05.595
This is an old, literature that try

02:05.595 --> 02:08.155
to understand why some countries are more progressed

02:08.155 --> 02:09.675
with innovation versus others,

02:10.335 --> 02:11.835
and they looked at different factors,

02:11.905 --> 02:14.595
including the knowledge base of certain countries.

02:14.695 --> 02:18.315
But when you start studying these, and especially,

02:18.455 --> 02:20.915
and you know, I would say that especially even in smaller

02:21.435 --> 02:23.355
countries, you realize that it's not

02:24.195 --> 02:25.795
a national system per se.

02:26.255 --> 02:28.195
The innovation tends to,

02:28.995 --> 02:32.555
concentrate in regions sometimes in very small

02:32.555 --> 02:33.835
regions within a country.

02:34.135 --> 02:37.275
The study of, of the regional,

02:38.075 --> 02:41.555
regional innovation system was, first published by Cook

02:41.555 --> 02:43.915
and Morgan in 1998.

02:44.215 --> 02:45.435
Uh, they have several studies,

02:45.575 --> 02:48.355
but this, you know, around the idea

02:48.455 --> 02:49.835
of regional innovation systems

02:50.255 --> 02:54.795
and they talked about the role of higher education, the role

02:54.795 --> 02:58.435
of government, you know, regional government and private,

02:59.145 --> 03:00.645
Uh, players is,

03:00.785 --> 03:03.765
and you know, more recently we have studies

03:03.795 --> 03:05.525
that talk about community groups

03:05.865 --> 03:07.565
and not-for-profit organizations.

03:08.655 --> 03:12.475
So for somebody like me, and as Professor Laton Smith

03:12.475 --> 03:15.515
and Bji San who study universities, you know,

03:15.515 --> 03:17.915
universities are located in a certain region

03:18.015 --> 03:21.995
and we you start to understand why certain region flourish

03:21.995 --> 03:25.435
versus others, you can see the role of universities.

03:25.575 --> 03:27.315
And if you look at political system,

03:27.445 --> 03:30.915
especially in the US you could see that there is,

03:31.325 --> 03:35.835
there was over the years a lot of, pressure

03:35.895 --> 03:38.795
to create to establish universities in certain regions.

03:39.215 --> 03:42.115
And you can see in regions that have universities,

03:42.115 --> 03:43.515
especially the ones that in the,

03:43.595 --> 03:45.875
I think in the UK these will be the red bricks

03:46.035 --> 03:47.355
universities, right?

03:47.495 --> 03:51.115
You see how they, you know, these region regions flourish.

03:52.255 --> 03:55.035
Um, and I think I'm in a ways a little bit jumping

03:55.095 --> 03:58.595
to another question is question of yours, but partly it is

03:58.595 --> 03:59.955
because there's a huge difference

03:59.955 --> 04:03.515
between the short-term impact of universities on the region

04:03.575 --> 04:05.595
and the long-term impact of students

04:05.775 --> 04:07.355
of universities on the region.

04:07.945 --> 04:09.635
Okay? So there's, there's two things.

04:09.775 --> 04:11.875
So when, when you look at the short-term

04:11.895 --> 04:14.635
and the long-term impact of universities, you know,

04:14.975 --> 04:16.355
one component,

04:16.655 --> 04:18.915
that's very important there is the role of students.

04:19.535 --> 04:21.555
So when we think of the short term, you think about,

04:21.575 --> 04:25.195
you know, students moving to the region, they purchase food,

04:25.465 --> 04:29.955
they rent apartments, they take part-time jobs, right?

04:30.295 --> 04:33.035
But what is the long-term impact of students?

04:33.935 --> 04:37.955
So what what we see is that in when the students,

04:38.175 --> 04:40.035
and especially graduate students,

04:40.205 --> 04:42.875
after they've been in a region for a long time, they tend

04:42.875 --> 04:44.565
to stay, right?

04:45.025 --> 04:47.685
And when they stay, they, you know, if we are connecting

04:47.685 --> 04:50.685
to the part of an entrepreneurship, they establish firms,

04:50.685 --> 04:51.765
firms,

04:51.905 --> 04:56.485
or they, invent new technologies that is,

04:56.785 --> 04:58.765
developed locally, right?

04:59.105 --> 05:01.805
So those are things that are really hard to measure,

05:02.385 --> 05:06.005
and you can do that with, a lot of either, you know,

05:06.005 --> 05:08.765
interviews or local data that you collect.

05:09.155 --> 05:12.285
It's very hard by just looking at general statistics

05:12.385 --> 05:13.765
on, on regions.

05:14.385 --> 05:18.325
Um, for the question on entrepreneurship, I think it's,

05:18.395 --> 05:21.245
it's very important to discuss the difference.

05:21.245 --> 05:23.605
And we, in the, in the special issues,

05:23.605 --> 05:25.045
there are several papers that talk about the

05:25.285 --> 05:26.365
mobility of students, right?

05:26.625 --> 05:28.725
So think about these are young people.

05:29.345 --> 05:32.955
Um, they are easily mob,

05:33.065 --> 05:36.115
more easily mobile than, you know, someone like me who have,

05:36.255 --> 05:37.635
who has kids in high school.

05:38.255 --> 05:41.275
Uh, we don't tend to move as much, but young people,

05:41.415 --> 05:43.755
and especially today with, you know, the global economy,

05:43.825 --> 05:45.475
they go where the jobs are.

05:45.815 --> 05:49.475
Or even, you know, as Richard Florida said years ago,

05:49.805 --> 05:52.595
where they wanna be where places are interesting to them

05:52.655 --> 05:53.755
or they provide services

05:53.865 --> 05:56.875
that they are interested in. So when

05:56.875 --> 05:58.645
We come to entrepreneurship, you have

05:58.645 --> 06:02.325
to add another component to it is, which is what kind

06:02.325 --> 06:07.245
of services or support does the region provide,

06:07.245 --> 06:08.965
entrepreneurs, right?

06:09.705 --> 06:12.085
So students tend to either stay

06:12.185 --> 06:15.205
or go to areas where the industry

06:15.205 --> 06:16.885
that they wanna work in is,

06:17.025 --> 06:19.205
or that they know that the region will support the

06:19.205 --> 06:20.245
development of their firm.

06:20.595 --> 06:23.245
There's several papers there that talk about the

06:23.865 --> 06:24.925
two important things.

06:25.265 --> 06:29.205
One is the difference between urban and and rural areas

06:29.865 --> 06:34.325
and the pool of, you know, the, the return

06:34.745 --> 06:36.245
or, so what happens to the students?

06:36.385 --> 06:39.205
Do they, if they came to the region, are they going back

06:39.265 --> 06:44.205
or staying or some we have a paper that looked at going

06:44.225 --> 06:46.405
and moving to somewhere else, right?

06:46.465 --> 06:48.525
So instead of going back home, they move somewhere else.

06:49.225 --> 06:51.925
And what they find is that for entrepreneurs,

06:51.975 --> 06:54.805
there is an advantage to go back to their home region.

06:55.025 --> 06:56.725
And if you think about it, it's, it's not

06:56.725 --> 06:57.925
that difficult to understand there.

06:57.995 --> 06:59.405
They know their region very well,

06:59.435 --> 07:00.445
they have their connection.

07:00.445 --> 07:01.925
It's much easier to establish firm.

07:02.345 --> 07:05.365
But on the other hand, we also see that there's a huge pool

07:05.465 --> 07:08.165
of the urban areas over the peripheral.

07:08.585 --> 07:12.645
So people both for employment but also for entrepreneurship,

07:12.645 --> 07:15.125
because there are a lot more resources

07:15.125 --> 07:17.085
that are available for these students.

07:17.595 --> 07:21.775
Yeah. So there is, so there's, there's two things.

07:21.915 --> 07:23.655
One, it relates to the fact that we,

07:23.805 --> 07:26.895
this special issue actually showed us how important it is

07:27.035 --> 07:29.935
to, study the, the role

07:29.935 --> 07:33.015
of students when we talked about regional innovation system,

07:33.075 --> 07:36.535
but in general in, in eco, the economic development

07:36.675 --> 07:39.015
of certain regions around the world.

07:39.555 --> 07:44.335
Um, and the second part is to consider the, the,

07:44.995 --> 07:49.135
you know, differences, the location, ability to absorb,

07:49.915 --> 07:54.095
the, the spillovers of, of that knowledge,

07:54.095 --> 07:57.575
whether it's students going back to their home, home region,

07:57.795 --> 08:00.375
or if they're staying in the university region.

08:00.405 --> 08:03.255
Then how, what should we do to make sure

08:03.255 --> 08:05.295
that we actually benefit from the fact that we

08:05.835 --> 08:08.295
got all these brilliant minds into our regions?

00:00 - I'm an economic geographer, and for many years I've worked on regional economic development specifically at why certain industry develop in certain places. and I've focused on the biotechnology industry for many years, and I've learned that it tends to center

00:17 - around universities. so I studied the role of universities in regional economic development. Through this work, I realized, I would say somewhere middle of my career that we talk a lot about academic research. We talk a lot about, you know, startups and contract research. We don't talk as much about the role of students, and partly it's because it's very hard to be able

00:53 - and attribute the fact that students went to certain universities, on regional economies, and we don't really have a lot of data on students. so that's the motivation of this special issue together with, professor Laton Smith and Akhi San, we all worked on this topic, including specifically regional economic development and the role of university. And, we did a session in, actually in regional studies conference in London,

01:27 - and we had several colleagues that wrote on the role of students. And we thought about the special issue as a good way to project all that knowledge. When we look at, innovation on national levels or regional level, the traditional, you know, theories that we analyze those through it are through either the national systems of innovation or the sub theory, which is the regional systems of innovation.

01:59 - So I'll start with national systems of innovation. This is an old, literature that try to understand why some countries are more progressed with innovation versus others, and they looked at different factors, including the knowledge base of certain countries. But when you start studying these, and especially, and you know, I would say that especially even in smaller countries, you realize that it's not a national system per se.

02:26 - The innovation tends to, concentrate in regions sometimes in very small regions within a country. The study of, of the regional, regional innovation system was, first published by Cook and Morgan in 1998. they have several studies, but this, you know, around the idea of regional innovation systems and they talked about the role of higher education, the role

02:54 - of government, you know, regional government and private, players is, and you know, more recently we have studies that talk about community groups and not-for-profit organizations. So for somebody like me, and as Professor Laton Smith and Bji San who study universities, you know, universities are located in a certain region and we you start to understand why certain region flourish versus others, you can see the role of universities.

03:25 - And if you look at political system, especially in the US you could see that there is, there was over the years a lot of, pressure to create to establish universities in certain regions. And you can see in regions that have universities, especially the ones that in the, I think in the UK these will be the red bricks universities, right? You see how they, you know, these region regions flourish. and I think I'm in a ways a little bit jumping

03:55 - to another question is question of yours, but partly it is because there's a huge difference between the short-term impact of universities on the region and the long-term impact of students of universities on the region. Okay? So there's, there's two things. So when, when you look at the short-term and the long-term impact of universities, you know, one component, that's very important there is the role of students.

04:19 - So when we think of the short term, you think about, you know, students moving to the region, they purchase food, they rent apartments, they take part-time jobs, right? But what is the long-term impact of students? So what what we see is that in when the students, and especially graduate students, after they've been in a region for a long time, they tend to stay, right? And when they stay, they, you know, if we are connecting to the part of an entrepreneurship, they establish firms,

04:50 - firms, or they, invent new technologies that is, developed locally, right? So those are things that are really hard to measure, and you can do that with, a lot of either, you know, interviews or local data that you collect. It's very hard by just looking at general statistics on, on regions. for the question on entrepreneurship, I think it's, it's very important to discuss the difference.

05:21 - And we, in the, in the special issues, there are several papers that talk about the mobility of students, right? So think about these are young people. they are easily mob, more easily mobile than, you know, someone like me who have, who has kids in high school. we don't tend to move as much, but young people, and especially today with, you know, the global economy, they go where the jobs are.

05:45 - Or even, you know, as Richard Florida said years ago, where they wanna be where places are interesting to them or they provide services that they are interested in. So when We come to entrepreneurship, you have to add another component to it is, which is what kind of services or support does the region provide, entrepreneurs, right? So students tend to either stay or go to areas where the industry

06:15 - that they wanna work in is, or that they know that the region will support the development of their firm. There's several papers there that talk about the two important things. One is the difference between urban and and rural areas and the pool of, you know, the, the return or, so what happens to the students? Do they, if they came to the region, are they going back or staying or some we have a paper that looked at going

06:44 - and moving to somewhere else, right? So instead of going back home, they move somewhere else. And what they find is that for entrepreneurs, there is an advantage to go back to their home region. And if you think about it, it's, it's not that difficult to understand there. They know their region very well, they have their connection. It's much easier to establish firm. But on the other hand, we also see that there's a huge pool

07:05 - of the urban areas over the peripheral. So people both for employment but also for entrepreneurship, because there are a lot more resources that are available for these students. Yeah. So there is, so there's, there's two things. One, it relates to the fact that we, this special issue actually showed us how important it is to, study the, the role of students when we talked about regional innovation system, but in general in, in eco, the economic development

07:36 - of certain regions around the world. and the second part is to consider the, the, you know, differences, the location, ability to absorb, the, the spillovers of, of that knowledge, whether it's students going back to their home, home region, or if they're staying in the university region. Then how, what should we do to make sure that we actually benefit from the fact that we got all these brilliant minds into our regions?

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