Higher Education and Competitiveness

Challenges for the Integration of Regional Learning and Innovation Systems

Abstract

Higher Education Institutions (HEI) must participate more actively in countries such as Mexico in the processes of integration and development of regional learning and innovation systems, in order to contribute to the improvement of the global competitiveness of the territories in which they are inserted. To this end, HEIs must develop all their socially assigned academic functions to process two necessary articulations: a) between the dissemination, use and transfer of knowledge produced at the global level and the processes of training competent human resources, and b) between the systematization of local knowledge and the construction of pertinent and timely responses to regional needs. For this to happen, higher education institutions must change themselves.