ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore important aspects of the governance dimension of Knowledge Economies. Of key importance in this is the clear implication of all decentralized industry policy that, on the one hand, what was called the ‘circuitry’ in Chapter 1 relates to regional and local nuances of industry’s innovation requirements, and, on the other, that policy is similarly attuned. This raises a major problem for the majority of regional governance agencies and associations, e.g. business associations. To the extent the former are mainly public, they do not usually have the depth of experience and expertise necessary to discharge a variety of new and challenging functions, nor do they have sufficient budget to do more than influence rather than determine important functions like university research trajectories since national governments are normally the funding agencies for higher education. There is variation in this and states in the USA, for instance, have more leeway than most regions in, for example, Europe. It is a developing issue in light of the questions of ‘proximity intellectual capital’ posed by Knowledge Economies. For private actors in the regional innovation governance field, such as business associations, chambers of commerce, and industry forums involving social partnerships of trade unions and employers, may be more familiar with operating at national level historically and are thus no better equipped in general than their public counterparts. Probably one reason greater pressure is now put on universities to take the lead in regional economic development, apart from the obvious one that they are heavily implicated as sources of potential knowledge commercialization, is that they are among the few organizations in any given region with legitimate authority to speak knowledgeably on science, technology and, it is hence believed, innovation and the policies that support it. Thus they often become a key part of the regional governance structure in Knowledge Economies and regions with aspirations to move in that direction.
