Thank you very much!

Thanks for the question Gabriela - i am very interested in how universities can do a better job in 'non campus' communities. Most of the literature is either about the places where universities physically are, OR about short term (project style) interventions in non-campus communities. I know of very little that looks at how universities can engage in communities where they are not (which are often the ones in greatest need). An interesting project in this regard is Akademi Norr (akademinorr.se) in Sweden. We are trying something similar in South Australia with the Mid North Knowledge Partnership - but we don;t yet have a 'formula' for either doing or evaluating what we are doing (https://www.facebook.com/MidNorthKnowledgePartnership)

From my perspective the universities play a role in opposition, while some areas of research for capital work, other, very few actually establish direct links with the needs of communities, especially rural.

University can play various roles for regional development. They can play as engine of growth to drive local economy as being a new urban center. Then it create demand for services e.g. dormitory, shopping center, banking, book store and health care. University can generate many jobs for local people and nowadays through sub-contracting or out-sourcing.University can educate skilled workforce which partly come from local and regional residents. Lastly university can provide technical outreach and research catering for the specific needs of both local and regional people or organizations.

The next special issue of Choices (the outreach publication of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association) will be devoted to how land grant universities can promote rural development in the US. This is part of the 100th anniversary of the Smith-Lever Act and the Cooperative Extension Service. Advance access to the articles will be available here over the coming weeks: http://www.choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazine

I would like to give an answer keeping in view the Indian context. The Indian Institutes of Technology train students who prefer to settle in USA for example. So, no regional development is possible from such institutes. On the other hand, those who pass from small Universities actually work towards regional development. 

The universities helps in research and technology, they have all the brains that can do research and get new products and this may help in development of development.

Hello, I will give a try to your very interesting question, well, firstly economic growth resuts of new markets, new inputs, new outputs, new technology, new institutional settings, so that whatever universities do, they  change the structure of all relations in their entourage, and higher education also helps to carry the principles of rationalization and diffusion of the practice of self experimentation in order that rural people leave behind superstitions and submissions, abandonment of beliefs that tie them to the past and so allowing that the local towns and small cities change the nature of their activities, and modernize, and this is the role of cities in growth: to transmit to the rural side new products and to demand newly identified resources, the key is to accentuate the characteristic roles of towns and cities to lead economic growth, Hope this helps