Keeping Talents in the Region? Educational Internships and Their Impact on Regional Development

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how internships within higher education contribute to place-shaping and regional development and especially on how employees and students engage with regional partners to develop education by co-creating internship projects. Strategies concerning regional development are set into play when higher education institutions (HEIs) and the private and public sectors collaborate to provide education. The empirical focus is on academic disciplines in Norway that quite recently have established student practice through internships, namely sociology, history, and business administration. We follow up this practice element by analysing the perspective of educational fields and different public and private actors within a regional setting to provide internships for students. The overall research question is this: How do internships contribute to educational and regional development from the perspectives of HEIs and regional actors?