The Impact of Universities’ Entrepreneurial Activity on Perception of Regional Competitiveness

Within the framework of the entrepreneurial university (EU), this study aims to test its multidimensional domain and therefore to confirm the positive contribution of EU factors to perceived regional competitiveness in Portugal. Data were collected from ten Portuguese public universities (PPUs) through a self-employed questionnaire. First- and second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed through factor and multiple linear regression analyses. The proposed EU construct was confirmed, thus proving the adequacy of scales for the PPUs context. Overall, the main findings show that EU factors—‘internal processes’, ‘entrepreneurial supporting measures’, ‘international collaboration’, and ‘funding strategy’—make a positive contribution to the perception of regional competitiveness. ‘Entrepreneurial supporting measures’ is the EU factor which has the biggest impact on perceived regional competitiveness and ‘organisational design’ is the only EU factor that does not reveal any impact on it. This contribution demonstrates to policy makers that PPUs are not merely cost centres but knowledge spillovers that can have a positive influence on regional competitiveness.