The discussion in this article focuses on how the gap between academic knowledge and regional development can be bridged, creating conditions for change processes between researchers and regional agents. Institutional entrepreneurs can create regional development organisations and research organisations, but in order to fulfil regional needs it is necessary to create processes where researchers and practitioners can connect and create a mutual change process. The analysis shows how new organisations have been used to create conditions for knowledge co-generation processes, a change in the language used and new work methods between researchers from Deusto University and Orkestra and regional actors over a period of 11 years in the Basque Country.