Innate or imposed? How cross-border cooperating higher education institutions advance knowledge policy linkages

The EU’s structural policies encourage cooperation both across borders and across policy areas. European Territorial Cooperation, better known as Interreg, also adresses higher education institutions located in border regions, which ought to contribute positively to the respective region’s economic and social development whilst bearing aspects of sustainability in mind. It is the regional level where the multi-faceted mission of European higher education institions is supposed to unfold. Yet, cross-border cooperating higher education institutions have been advancing transectoral knowledge policy linkages regardless of EU policies and financial support, which yields the following question: To what extent do transectoral knowledge policy linkages in border regions stem from Europeanisation processes? The analysis scrutinizes the relationship between knowledge policy linkages as proposed by EU structural policies and their translation into concrete cooperation practices among knowledge policy actors located in border regions. This is useful to determine the ‘Europeanness’ of their cooperation endeavours. The paper relies on interviews conducted with actors engaged in establishing connections across territorial borders and knowledge policy areas: academic and administrative staff at higher education institutions located in the border region around Lake Constance and in the Greater Region, regional, national and EU-level public actors dealing both with EU regional and HE policy and transnational actors representing the interests of HE institutions. The analysis demonstrates that approaches to link higher education, research and innovation are innate to higher education institutions located in border regions, while European Territorial Cooperation provides the impetus to systematize the linkages between knowledge policies and their respective actors.