Table Of ContentEdward Crawley
John Hegarty
Kristina Edström
Juan Cristobal Garcia Sanchez
Universities
as Engines
of Economic
Development
Making Knowledge Exchange Work
Universities as Engines of Economic Development
Edward Crawley • John Hegarty
Kristina Edström • Juan Cristobal Garcia Sanchez
Universities as Engines
of Economic Development
Making Knowledge Exchange Work
Edward Crawley John Hegarty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Trinity College Dublin
Cambridge, MA, USA Dublin, Ireland
Kristina Edström Juan Cristobal Garcia Sanchez
KTH Royal Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stockholm, Sweden Cambridge, MA, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-47548-2 ISBN 978-3-030-47549-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47549-9
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Authors’ Foreword
We wrote this book because we identified an opportunity to enhance the sustainable
development of society. We seek to raise universities’ ambitions and capabilities in
a way that is aligned with the desires of society. Advancing societal development,
and, in particular, economic development, is not a new contribution of universities.
They already do this through education, research, and what is traditionally called
service. We saw a need for systematic exploration of these matters across universi-
ties worldwide. Our contribution is captured as a set of patterns of human behavior
that we call practices. We also draw attention to the interplay between these prac-
tices and illustrate them with case studies.
These ideas are born out of joint reflection on various practical experiences, har-
vesting some of our own lessons learned.
Edward Crawley has been involved in founding and reforming university efforts
since 1993. When he served as the Co-Director of the Cambridge (UK)—MIT
Institute, he observed the potential of all universities to improve and that they would
benefit by using a framework to organize and communicate their efforts. He applied
and evolved the framework during his service as Founding President of the Skolkovo
Institute of Science and Technology.
John Hegarty was president for ten years of Trinity College, Dublin, a compre-
hensive university with strong culture and traditions. He led a major expansion of
research, growth in interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration, a transfor-
mation of organizational structures, and engagement with external stakeholders.
Since then, he has applied his knowledge by helping other universities and organi-
zations. He is deeply committed to the importance of all university disciplines, and
of a balance between curiosity-driven and use-inspired research.
Kristina Edström approached these issues through 20 years of experience in
developing educational programs and faculty competence at KTH Royal Institute of
Technology, as well as in national and international collaborations and consultan-
cies. Her motivation is to promote meaningfulness in education, to empower stu-
dents for doing something with their understanding, and thus preparing them for a
stimulating and productive working life with positive impact on society.
vii
viii Authors’ Foreword
Juan Cristobal Garcia Sanchez has conducted innovation programs for universities,
high-tech companies, and industrial clusters. He has written or edited 20 books. He
develops educational approaches for innovation that prepare change agents who can
build learning organizations, and who excel in systemic thinking, creative collabora-
tion, and agile execution. He strives for a sustainable and inclusive society by strength-
ening the links between learning, entrepreneurship, and prosperity.
This book is intended to be useful and pragmatic, highlighting opportunities for
addressing practical issues of economic development. The readers we have in mind
are not primarily specialist scholars, and this text will not pass the tests of rigorous
social science research. Still, we hope that researchers of university development
can appreciate a practice-based and action-oriented reflection.
Primarily, we write for those interested in a comprehensive discussion about
practical approaches. Our framework can serve as a point of departure for those who
need to make decisions and take action. Broadly speaking, the ideas provide an
agenda for deep engagement with stakeholders and useful guidance that allows
agreement on an effective way forward. The intended readers are those who have a
stake in universities:
• University leaders—board members, administrators, and faculty thought leaders.
They will see a resource and reference point in planning university contributions
to economic development.
• Funders—government, industry, philanthropies, and alumni. They will have a
clearer understanding of how the resources of the university translate into impact
on economic development.
• Educational policy makers—governments, and quality and accreditation organi-
zations. They will better understand how universities will evolve and the latitude
they need.
• Economic development agencies—They will better understand how universities
will contribute to economic development.
• Partners—industry, small and medium enterprise, and government organiza-
tions. They will better understand how to engage with the university for mutual
benefit.
• Neighbors—communities, local government, business, and the media. They will
better understand how the university can engage with them to strengthen the
local community and its development.
• Students and their families—They will learn how to contribute to the evolution
of the university and how to benefit from a deeper involvement in knowledge
exchange.
The book has as its foundation a set of patterns of human behavior that we call
practices. There are many dimensions to the activities within a university. To make
this book practical, it was important to describe a set of implementable practices
within a consistent framework.
By illustrating the practices with actual cases, we demonstrate that the practices
are real and representative. The practices illustrate what many universities around
the world are doing. We could have chosen from among hundreds of other cases at
Authors’ Foreword ix
many other excellent institutions. Based on our own insights and experiences, we
selected 43 cases representing effective deployment. Each is adapted to the local
context, conditions, and culture. Some of the cases are well documented and inter-
nationally recognized, while others are little known. They show a diversity in insti-
tutions and are widely distributed geographically. The scope varies from
institution-wide activities to work on a smaller scale. The cases are a substantial and
valuable part of this book. We are greatly indebted to those who provided the exam-
ples that demonstrate feasibility and help give life to the narrative.
We acknowledge that today is a time of accelerating change for universities. This
book will help all readers understand the current state of practice, based on a retro-
spective journey. If we were now to start the 20 years of work that this book sum-
marizes, we would, for example, have a stronger emphasis on sustainable development
in all its dimensions.
This book focuses on economic contributions based on science, engineering, and
entrepreneurship, by technical universities and comprehensive universities that have
technology and science programs. This reflects the majority of our own direct expe-
rience, and it is also the area where the current expectations are the greatest. We do
not in any way seek to devalue the other forms of contributions by universities, or
the contributions by other types of higher educational institutions.
Foreword
Universities are among the oldest institutions in the world. Many are certainly older
than most governments or businesses. It is sometimes said that they have lasted so
long because they are built upon long-lasting codes of behavior and well-tested tradi-
tions. The same reasons are put forward to explain why some academics resist change.
Indeed, there are general principles of academic freedom, intellectual rigor, and
integrity that have stood for centuries, even in contentious times. In my view, these
principles alone do not explain the remarkable longevity of some universities.
Successful universities have lasted so long because they have been prepared
continually to adapt to changing circumstances. Change is generally supported by
students, who are mostly young and insist on their teachers staying up to date, but
change is sometimes resisted by academics although they frequently come up with
ideas for change themselves in their research. Change has also been needed to cope
with the ten times increase in young people seeking degrees over the last 50 years.
This book points out that it is in the nature of successful universities to adapt to
changes in society, and the authors use a wide range of case studies to show how this
has been achieved. The authors have used their extensive international experience to
pull together a reference volume that will be valuable for anyone running or creating
universities in the twenty-first century.
Another questionable assumption that gained credibility in the past is that aca-
demics preserve their creativity by avoiding worldly influences, especially those
related to commerce and money. In fact, changes related to commerce and money
do penetrate into universities and have done so at an accelerating pace over the last
few decades. These changes have particularly affected research in the Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines, but have also
occurred in many areas of the humanities and social sciences.
STEM research has been affected because the intense competition created by
globalization has forced almost all industrial and business organizations to abandon
basic research. The bulk of the resources they have made available for research and
development are now needed to keep up with the development of modern highly
complex products and technologies. Fundamental research on subjects unrelated to
their products, such as that pursued at the AT&T and IBM research laboratories in
xi
xii Foreword
the middle of the twentieth century, is rarely found in industry today. Even basic
research underpinning products and technologies is increasingly conducted in part-
nerships with universities, where it can gain financial support from government and
other non-company sources.
To encourage and support these partnerships, universities have had to acquire
new equipment and research staff to be relevant to industry and business. Money for
this has come from governments, charities, alumni, and, in a few cases, from profits
made on teaching. To justify the money, universities have had to explain how their
research benefits society. In some institutions, this met initially with strident resis-
tance. The requirement for research to have an “impact” was scorned. Fortunately,
on further consideration, universities realized that most of their research did have an
impact, and the extra funds allowed them to expand into exciting new areas of
research.
The authors explain that universities need not undergo revolutionary change to
positively impact the societies of which they are part. Many are already strengthen-
ing their contributions to sustainable economic, social, and cultural developments.
In other words, they have discovered that they can act as engines of economic devel-
opment when they accelerate innovation in industry and enterprise through knowl-
edge exchange.
While universities often prioritize knowledge transfer, some still think of it as a
one-way flow of mostly intellectual property. Few have made knowledge exchange
one of their core activities as defined in this book. The authors point out that activi-
ties that strengthen knowledge exchange can be built into education, research, and
catalyzing innovation without requiring radical action. It can be accomplished sim-
ply by further evolution of the university’s traditional strengths.
Knowledge exchange is not an add-on or separate function, but can be embedded
in the university’s core education, research, and innovation missions. It implies soft-
ening the borders of the university and lowering barriers to make the flow of people,
discoveries, and creations easier. This proves of benefit to everyone. Knowledge
exchange taken deeply into the thinking and actions of the university can improve
its own intellectual capabilities as well as accelerating innovation in its partners.
The novel contribution of this book is that it charts a systematic and pragmatic
approach to strengthen knowledge exchange with well-defined effective practices
and a large number of case studies to illustrate how this has been achieved by a
broad range of universities across the world. These case studies guide those intent
upon increasing the impact of their efforts.
Universities will be relieved that the authors are not saying radical change is
necessary. But they are challenging university leaders to rethink the common pat-
terns of behavior in education, research, and innovation. They show how the support
functions of the university need to reposition themselves to better support knowl-
edge exchange using the same pragmatic approach. It signals to all partners of the
university what they should do to play their part in the exchange.
The book delves into the sensitive area of how universities can measure their
progress towards successful knowledge exchange, and how goals and individual
behavior can be reconciled.
