Despite a wealth of efforts that examine separately the role entrepreneurs and universities play in economic development, no systematic effort has been made to examine the role universities play in promoting economic development through entrepreneurship. This book fills that gap, focusing on policy aspects of government-university partnerships with a discussion both of best practices and problematic strategies. The book begins by tracing the history of American government-university-industry partnerships that have promoted economic development. In succeeding chapters, well-known scholars focus on linkages in different domains such as: technology transfer, innovation networks, brain drain, cluster-based planning, and manufacturing. Practitioner commentaries follow many of the chapters in order to present an evaluation of the arguments from the perspective of someone directly involved in the fostering of these relationships.

Non-technical and accessible in nature, the chapters summarize existing knowledge and research in order to help policymakers, foundations, university officials, business leaders and other stakeholders create and enhance partnerships between universities and governments that encourage economic development through entrepreneurship.