Universities have a key influence on society in a two-fold manner: they train and educate people and they participate in governance at the national and regional level. This paper focuses on universities and how they function to foster sustainable development. It identifies their actual and potential roles in fulfilling educational, research, governance, and economic development functions, as well as facilitative and mediating functions. A set of seven hypotheses has been derived from the literature and used to develop an analytical framework for considering the three main functions: education, research and governance. The framework distinguishes the individual and the societal educational functions, knowledge creation and knowledge transfer within the research function, and finally the internal and external governance functions. This framework has been applied to a particular case study – the University of Graz, which hosts a Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development. The case study analysis allowed a first test of the hypotheses. For this specific case a couple of prerequisites were identified as helping universities act as facilitators for sustainable development at the regional level. A diverse institutional set-up, a committed leadership as well as alliances with particular bridging organizations such as the Regional Centres of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development are only a few of the factors that were found to be facilitative in the case under study. ► We focus on universities as facilitators for sustainable development. ► The case study analyzes the institutional set-up and its effects. ► Competent bridging institutions provide network opportunities for universities. ► Besides this a committed leadership has been identified as supporting factor.