Territory development through Higher Education Institutions

This thesis examines how the global transformation of higher education affects the territories that host universities, using the Venetian university pole as a case study. It first compares the higher education systems of the United States and the European Higher Education Area, showing how Italy performs poorly on attainment, graduate wage premium and international attractiveness. It then reads Ca' Foscari and its territory through two causal loop diagrams, an internal and an external system map. The empirical part draws on interviews and a workshop with fourteen participants, ten students and four external stakeholders, analysed with the Gioia methodology. Forty-nine coded citations were grouped into twenty-one themes and four aggregate dimensions. The findings show that Venice attracts students but does not retain them, because the housing market, university evaluation, public administration and the regional economy do not reward retention. These results lead to six revisions of the system maps, read as leverage points. A benchmark of ten international cases informs two strategic initiatives, intermediate bodies that give students a voice and a student housing strategy. An impact and feasibility matrix shows that the most effective measures depend on the City, the Region and ESU as well as on the university.