The regional role of universities in technology transfer and economic development

Abstract

Amidst growing policy interest across both developed and developing nations in regional innovation systems as focal points of leverage for economic development, this paper explores the state of the literature on the role that universities perform in the development of regional innovation systems. The predominant focus in the literature has been on institutional analysis of university-industry technology transfer. This is important but tends to underestimate the potentially broad-based 'third role' of universities in regional systems. An analytical framework is proposed for considering the role of universities in the development of regional innovation systems and explanation of variation in the roles performed by universities in different regional settings. This framework is systemic in nature, drawing on the triple helix model of university, industry, government relations, the emerging literature on university engagement and seminal thinking in the regional innovation systems literature. Although not without its limitations, this framework enhances current approaches which have tended to concentrate on transactional and institutional analysis.

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