ABSTRACT
One of the frequent strategies for industry modernisation in Eastern Europe is to attract foreign capital offering low labour costs, newly built infrastructure, and financial stimuli on one hand and to place a higher education institution in the region in the hope of technological restart on the other. In this chapter we discuss these strategies with the example of the Usti region, Czech Republic. We find that a low road strategy, though effective in attracting foreign capital, did not lead to sufficient technological upgrade. The regional role of the higher educational institution was substantially impeded by the regulations of the higher educational sector, the lack of systemic collaboration with the stakeholders, and existing path dependencies.
