This paper discusses the theoretical aspects of the relationship between scientific and technological production of universities and local development. The central argument is that this relationship is potentialized when produced knowledge permits the occupation of a position in the scientific field and is linked to specific forms of local insertion. In the context of globalization, which keeps the center-periphery structure of the world economic system practically intact, articulation is proposed between global and local dimensions of the environment. The recovery of theoretical-empirical categories formulated by Economic Commission for Latin-America and the Caribbean helps to place the discussion in a political sphere, and to characterize local development as an expression of social change on territorially demarcated scales.