Games of policy and practice: multi-level dynamics and the role of universities in knowledge transfer processes

This paper adopts a multilevel, longitudinal case study approach to analyze universities’ institutional role and their contributions to society. It explores third mission policies and practices enacted within the University of Bologna from 1996 to 2016, presenting a detailed account of their interaction within the university and with regional and national regulatory initiatives. The aim is to highlight the relevance of a joint analysis of three dynamics. The first dynamic relates to how norms and practices oscillate between formal and informal codification and how strategic initiatives, either led from the top down or driven from the bottom up, develop in a non-linear fashion. The second dynamic describes the ways within which the structural definition of roles falls short in providing a full understanding of the changes in policies and attitudes related to knowledge transfer activities and their need to be complemented by a process analysis of the relationships among actors at different levels. The third dynamic relates to how multiple institutional logics evolve and change over time through a combination of dedicated structures and spaces of interaction in which the logics meet, sometimes aligning, sometimes compromising, and sometimes clashing. This three-pronged approach offers a novel contribution to the understanding of how universities interact with close and distant environments and their impacts on society.