Innovation, Networks and Learning Regions? address key issues of understanding in contemporary economic geography and local economic policy making in cities and regions in the advanced economies. Developing the idea that innovation is the primary driving force behind economic change and growth, the international range of contributors stress the importance of knowledge and information as the 'raw materials' of innovation. They examine the ways in which these elements may be acquired and linked through networks, and demonstrate that there are empirical examples of innovative areas which do not have highly developed networks yet appear to be relatively successful in terms of local economic growth. In so doing, they raise crucial questions about the ways in which regions or localities might be described as truly 'learning' areas, and about the sustainability of future economic and quality of life success based on innovation and high-technology.

Universities are increasingly expected to be at the heart of networked structures contributing to society in meaningful and measurable ways through research, the teaching and development of experts, and knowledge innovation. While there is nothing new in universities’ links with industry, what is recent is their role as territorial actors. It is government policy in many countries that universities - and in some countries national laboratories - stimulate regional or local economic development. Universities, Innovation and the Economy explores the implications of this expectation. It sites this new role within the context of broader political histories, comparing how countries in Europe and North America have balanced the traditional roles of teaching and research with that of exploitation of research and defining a territorial role. Helen Lawton-Smith highlights how pressure from the state and from industry has produced new paradigms of accountability that include responsibilities for regional development. This book uses empirical evidence from studies conducted in North America and Europe to provide an overview of the changing geography of university-industry links.