ABSTRACT
Nodes of innovation in a global economy Universities have historically been seen as bastions of stability and anchors of traditions (DeMillo 2011). In the twenty-first century, universities are increasingly expanding their traditional roles of teaching and research to include technology transfer, economic initiatives, and workforce development, partially in response to technological and global economic factors. They have become drivers of innovation both physically, in their immediate locales, as well as virtually, in terms of dissemination of knowledge. In many places, the university’s strengths of teaching and pure research represent untapped opportunities to collaborate with other actors across institutional boundaries, leveraging sector strengths (Cross 2013). Public perception of what the university of the twenty-first century can do has not always kept up with these changes, and is a potential barrier to industry-university partnerships (Baker et al. 2012). The influence of universities beyond their immediate physical environs is not a new idea in the geographic literature (e.g., Audretsch et al. 2005; Mueller 2006), but is magnified by the adoption of information and communications technologies (ICT), as noted by Castells (2010). Consequently, this influence is shifting beyond the impact of knowledge creation to actual changes in the manner in which higher education is produced, practiced, and disseminated (Baker et al. 2012).
