Bright Satanic Mills: Universities, Regional Development and the Knowledge Economy

by Laske,Stephan; Scott,Alan

• ISBN13: 9780754645856
• ISBN10: 0754645851
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Recent years have seen much closer links between universities and the economic, social and environmental health of the regions in which they are situated. In this book a cross-disciplinary and cross-national team of experts consider the reasons for and the implications of the new relationship between universities and territorial development.Three key trends are discussed. The first is that against a backdrop of ongoing processes of globalization, there is growing recognition of the importance of sub-national development strategies. Processes of regionalisation, governmental decentralisation and sub-national mobilisation provide a context for universities to become powerful partners in the process of managing sub-national economic, social and environmental change.The second trend is the continued evolution of the knowledge economy. While ICTs have freed up location decisions within knowledge-intensive industries, innovation in the production of goods and services has, if anything, become still more 'tied' to locations that can nurture the human and intellectual capital upon which those industries rely. Thus cities and regions in which higher education services are concentrated have a competitive advantage.The third trend is the commercialisation of higher education, which has deepened the engagement between universities and external stakeholders, including those based in their localities.Each of these trends has generated a significant literature, but this is the first book to bring all three stands together effectively, synthesising the key conceptual debates and analysing the way in which they have been experienced in different local, regional and national contexts and with what effects.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Universities, 'relevance' and scale

Local and Regional Engagement Strategies

Dilemmas and Options

External Engagements and Internal Transformations

Universities, Localities and Regional Developments

Knowledge and Technology Transfer

Can Universities Promote Regional Development?

Regional Development, Universities and Strategies for Cluster Promotion

The International Network University of the Future and Its Local and Regional Impacts

Knowledge Production, Management and the Academic Role

University Governance

Actors and Identities

Who Are the Real 'Problem owners'?

On the Social Embeddedness of Universities

Regulation, Engagement and Academic Production

Narrating the University

Values Across Disciplines

Academics in the 'Knowledge Economy'

From Expert to Intellectual?

Organising Engagement

Practices and Impacts

Building Bridges over Troubled Water

A Tale of the Difficult Cooperation between University and Region

Community Engagement in Developing a New Campus

The Griffith University

Logan Campus experience

Managing a University Merger in a Post-Industrial Context (the Ruhrgebiet)

An interview with

Founding Rector of the University of

Bibliography

Index

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