Rethinking the Role of Research Universities in Economic Development

Abstract

In this article, Mary Walshok offers a new way of thinking about university–industry relations. She argues that there is a need to support simultaneously ‘basic’ research and to establish institutional mechanisms which make knowledge more accessible and useful to economic development. Rather than advocating, as some have, that universities pursue a more ‘applied’ research agenda, she emphasizes the vital role basic research plays in technology–driven economic development and provides a description of a university–industry programme, CONNECT, which is successfully making knowledge linkages vital to economic development in the context of a leading US research university, the University of California, San Diego.