Universities are expected to play a proactive role in the sustainable development and transformation of their regions. However, they face external and internal barriers to play that role. Transformative Academic Institutions (TAIs) are a possible approach to better understand and overcome those barriers. Defined as research centres created within universities to proactively engage in territorial development processes they can act as ‘living labs’ from which universities can draw lessons when developing a regionally engaged role. We explore the TAI concept further by analysing five academic partners working in different organisational research settings within larger university structures. Our exploration of TAI practices followed an action research approach with participatory design methods. Findings point to a more strategic partnering with external (non-academic) actors to contribute to (longer-term) change processes that address regional sustainability challenges. This can take universities towards new roles in curating collective knowledge and catalysing and facilitating change.