ساختمان مرکز نوآوری: یک مطالعه موردی از دگرگونی نقش دانشگاه در توسعه فن آوری و اقتصادی منطقه ای

Universities have assumed an expanded role in science and technology-based economic development that has become of interest to catch-up regions as well as to leading innovation locales. This paper examines how the role of the university has evolved from performing conventional research and education functions to serving as an innovation-promoting knowledge hub though the case of Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). This case is discussed in the context of state efforts to shift the region from an agricultural to an industrial to an innovation-driven economy. Central to the transformation of Georgia Tech as a knowledge hub is the emergence of new institutional leadership, programs, organizational forms and boundary-spanning roles that meditate among academic, educational, entrepreneurial, venture capital, industrial, and public spheres. Comparisons between Georgia Tech's experiences and those of university roles in selected other catch-up regions in the southern United States highlight the importance to the case of networked approaches, capacity building, technology-based entrepreneurial development, and local innovation system leadership. Insights on the transformation of universities and the challenges of fostering a similar transformation in regional economies are offered.

Albeit often gradually, the roles that universities undertake in society change and evolve over time. “The medieval university looked backwards; it professed to be a storehouse of old knowledge… The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge.” So wrote the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley in 1892 (Huxley, 1892), remarking on the transformation that industrial society had stimulated in long-established functions of universities. In this paper, we examine the case of one university and how it has undergone a further transformation, from that of a knowledge factory to a knowledge hub, to advance technological innovation and economic development in its region. One of the hallmarks of a knowledge hub is that it serves as a boundary-spanning organization that accumulates mediating functions for the exchange of tacit as well as codified knowledge between academia and local business and financial communities. The case of Georgia Tech illustrates how one university has benefited from university leadership and the accumulation of boundary-spanning programs. These programs seek to develop new technology-oriented business capabilities among academic faculty, startup ventures, mature companies, and industry clusters. Evaluations of these programs suggest that their explicit elements are most likely to be measured and reported, even though tacit knowledge sharing is what is most valued by participants and stakeholders. After comparing the approaches to leveraging universities in other rising innovation regions in the US South, we then explore the implications for university transformation in stimulating an innovation-based regional economy.

This paper has suggested an evolution in the roles of universities from knowledge storehouse (mode 1) to knowledge factory (mode 2) to knowledge hub (mode 3). (See Carayannis and Campbell, 2006, Harrison and Leitch, 2005 and Hagen, 2002 regarding related uses of the mode 3 concept.) Of course, this is a highly abstracted simplification. Arguably there are variations and exceptions by country and institution. And we note that the university tends to accumulate roles, i.e. earlier roles do not necessarily disappear as new roles are added. While the details of our case derive from a US institution (which began life in mode 2, then more recently transitioned to mode 3), we do observe a general tendency across many advanced countries for universities to seek (or be pushed) towards greater linkages and relevance for innovation, particularly in regional contexts (OECD, 2007b). Some universities attempt to address these imperatives by “bolting-on” new activities, but without fundamental restructuring and reorientation. Others have more fully embraced innovation missions, and in the process, are pioneering a variety of new organizational and knowledge modes that we collectively term as knowledge hubs. In contrast to earlier modes, these knowledge-hub institutions not only accumulate and produce knowledge, but they also actively foster knowledge exchange, learning and innovation through new methods and the development of boundary-spanning activities.