The study analyses the role of regional development in higher education using the approach of the balanced scorecard, which provides a framework for organizations to describe and communicate their strategy. It turns out that the balanced scorecard is not only an approach for implementing the strategy, but it also provides a general framework for evaluating the strategy from the different perspectives. The study presents examples where the new evaluation approach has been used to analyse the national educational policy of regional development, regional strategies of higher education institutions and their cooperation. According to the results of the study, cooperation between higher education institutions is most important from the perspectives of learning and regional development. (Contains 3 tables.)