ABSTRACT
The wishes, expectations and demands of industry collaborations are not only growing in the research departments of the university but also within its class rooms. As a result, students and teachers find themselves increasingly 'caught up' in the interplay between academia and external tourism actors. Success is evaluated in terms of knowledge transfer between separate locations in a regional space. In similar terms as network topology bridge-building rests on holding the relations between the actors or elements involved constant. The metaphor of scouts refers to someone who is exploring uncharted territory and mapping and testing new terrains and generating new ideas. The idiot as a conceptual figure refers to the 'overspill' of the collaborative encounters as events of engagement. The activities of the idiot sparked new realities into being – or allowed for alternative connections and made Rasmus more aware of what he was 'busy doing' with tourism.
