  We investigated the role of universities in the prosperity of cities and
regions. Performance characteristics of universities are derived from the
Leiden Ranking 2020. The socioeconomic strength of a city is determined with
the urban scaling methodology. Our study shows a significant relation between
the presence of a university in a city and its socioeconomic indicators,
particularly for larger cities, and that this is especially the case for
universities with higher values of their output, impact and collaboration
indicators.
