This thesis is a theoretically grounded empirical study aimed at shedding light on the dynamic interactions of universities with government and industry in response to university-industry cooperation policy in South Korea. It questions the loosely-based assumptions found in current literature relating to the role of universities in their engagement in regional innovative development, that universities may engage actively in localised interactive processes. This study uses the concept of RIS (Regional Innovation'System) as a conceptual framework to explore the relationships between theory, practice and policy. The study analysed new university-industry cooperation policy in South Korea that had been implemented after 2003 to promote RIS building. The empirical fieldwork was completed in two administrative regions, Gyeongsangbuk-do Province and Daegu City, by the selection of four regional universities. In order to identify the dynamic interactions of universities in response to the policy, this research used a mixed methodology mainly based on qualitative interviews with academics, government officers and firm managers. The Triple Helix Model was adopted to provide an analytical tool to study these responses. Analysis of the empirical study reveals significant findings: first, the regional universities responded positively to the government policy, in terms of outward appearances, but their interactions with government and industry did not develop to the degree of creating new relationships in the triple helix relations; second, therefore, it can be said that it is difficult to co-ordinate universities into the localised interactive processes as a part of regional innovation strategies; and last, it seems that the .' boundaries. for regional innovation system are determined through ongoing dynamic selective processes for maximising the benefits of each organisation.

This thesis takes the critical incident of the suicide of a part-time lecturer in South Korea in 2010 and the subsequent policy response as paradigmatic of the problems of governing higher education. In terms of theoretical resources, it draws on state theories, especially a cultural approach to the state, in order to understand the multiple relations and the interplay of different layers of governing practices in the governing of higher education in South Korea. This thesis argues that mainstream theories of the state are often culturally 'blind' and that the specificities of the Korean state need to be understood with reference to its particular culture, history and context. The thesis also draws on literature on higher education governance, from which three governing principles are identified as topics for investigation, along with a process-oriented approach to professionalism. The research question emerging from this is 'how does the centrality of the Korean state play out in the governing of higher education in South Korea?' Methodologically, the enquiry is shaped by critical discourse analysis (CDA). This approach explores the ways in which higher education governing discourses are related to other social elements. By analysing policy texts and institutional characteristics, the first phase of the enquiry explores how the governing discourses have been indigenised, constructing particular state-academy relations in South Korea. The second phase scrutinises the case of part-time lecturer policy in order to illuminate the distinctive governing dynamics, by which the centrality of the Korean state is assumed to be practised.