ABSTRACT
Innovation districts are a new land-use type, where public and private actors work towards fostering, attracting, and retaining investment and talent to revitalise urban areas and boost knowledge/innovation economy activities. Developing innovation districts has become a popular urban strategy across the globe. They are often co-located with universities to act as a critical anchor in their socio-spatial and operational matrices. Despite the role of universities in the knowledge and innovation economy being researched extensively, university and innovation district symbiosis, particularly in the context of place making, is an understudied area of research. This chapter aims to investigate the socio-cultural role played by anchor universities in facilitating place making in innovation districts. The study adopts a qualitative approach to analyse how stakeholders perceive Australian innovation districts. The findings reveal that universities play pivotal roles as facilitators of place making through societal integration in innovation districts; universities act as platforms for collaboration and exchange of knowledge by adopting extroverted and collaborative approaches; universities help in developing a sense of trust within the community and establishing innovation districts as democratic, cohesive, and prosperous localities; and universities contribute to socio-cultural and organisational maturity of innovation districts.
