Colleges and universities are important convergence points for education, science and technology, and talent, which are fundamental and strategic supports of Chinese-style modernization. This paper takes the regional collaborative innovation policy in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as a quasi-natural experiment and examines the impact of regional collaborative innovation policies on university innovation by constructing a difference-in-differences model. Research has found that regional collaborative innovation policies can significantly promote innovation in universities. Mechanism analysis reveals that this policy has an impact on university innovation by increasing support for innovative talents, promoting the expansion of scientific research scale and conducting technological innovation cooperation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the policy effect of regional collaborative innovation is more significant in universities in central regions, axial regions, and functional transfer regions, as well as in regular universities and science and engineering universities, and in universities with a low degree of cooperation among government, industry, and academia. Further analysis shows that regional collaborative innovation policies can effectively increase the income from the transformation of scientific and technological achievements of universities by promoting their innovation capabilities, and empower regional economic development. This article provides theoretical and empirical evidence for exploring the influencing factors and determination mechanisms of innovation in colleges and universities.