ABSTRACT
This statement by the UK’s Minister of Science and Technology ideologically and politically places universities at the centre of economic development per se and of contemporary local and regional economies. Academics researching in this field have made similar statements. For example, Leifner et al. (2004, 23) state that ‘A society’s economic competitiveness is dependent on the performance of its higher education institutions’ and Godin and Gingras (2000) argue that, despite a real diversification of the loci of production of knowledge, ‘universities still are at the heart of the system and all other actors rely on the expertise’. In answering the question ‘what is the role of universities in knowledge-based capitalism?’ Florida and Cohen (1999, 590) argue that ‘Science has emerged as an alternative to engine of economic growth to the classic triumvirate of land, labour and capital, the traditional sources of wealth’.
