Creating Knowledge Networks

Please login to access download links.

Working Partnerships in Higher Education, Industry and Innovation The new science and technology framework has challenged higher education institutions in South Africa to create research partnerships with industry, to contribute to growing a national system of innovation. Through detailed case studies, this monograph explores how one new organisational form typical of the knowledge society, the network, is currently being created in practice, in all its complex and contingent reality, in three high technology fields. It is the third volume in the Working Partnerships: Higher Education, Industry and Innovation series. The case studies show that knowledge networks are primarily shaped by the competitive dynamics of the industrial sub-sector within which partner enterprises operate, intersecting with the levels of scientific and managerial expertise within higher education partner institutions, and facilitated by government policy steering mechanisms and intermediary partners. The intersection of interests gives all partners a stake in the research project at the heart of the knowledge network, and builds the levels of trust required to succeed. The analysis highlights some of the possibilities and constraints evident in the current policy context, suggesting that state attempts to steer the system need to be more nuanced and targeted, informed by the specificity of sectoral dynamics, and it suggests that universities need to identify their own strategic solutions to develop a flexible and adaptive institutional approach to networks.

Tables and Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations and acronyms

1. Higher education and contemporary challenges: investigating industry partnerships and networks
Glenda Kruss

2. Biotechnology research and technology networks: the dynamics of competition and cooperation
Gilton Klerck

3. Information and communication technology networks: leading or following the economic sector?
Andrew Paterson

4. Partnerships and networks in new materials development
Shane Godfrey

5. Learning through networks
Glenda Kruss

Appendices
Bibliography

Dr Glenda Kruss is a Chief Research Specialist in the HSRCs Education, Science and Skills Development research programme and holds a D.Phil from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. She has conducted research on private higher education, on higher education-industry partnerships and is pursuing research on higher education and regional innovation.

Dr Gilton Klerck is a Lecturer in Industrial and Economic Sociology and holds a PhD from Rhodes University. His research interests include industrial development, labour market reform and workplace restructuring.

Andrew Paterson is Chief Research Specialist in the Education, Science and Skills Development research programme at the HSRC. His research interests include the application of education management information systems to education policy and planning; the development of education indicators for South Africa; the application of information and communication technologies in schools and in higher education; and rural and agricultural education.

Shane Godfrey is a Senior Researcher at the Labour and Enterprise Project based in the Sociology Department and Institute of Development and Labour Law at the University of Cape Town. Fifteen years as a university-based researcher and an interest in firm-level case studies has resulted in the special interest in a project that examined partnerships between higher education institutions and industry.