National systems of innovation, innovation niches, and diversity in university systems

Abstract

Universities have come to represent strategic sites for the production of knowledge and innovations driving major economic and societal transformations. In this paper, we examine the role universities play in national innovation systems. Developing our contribution within the context of the UK university system, we present a conceptual organizing framework to capture different university models and the multifaceted contributions of the university to the innovation system. Beyond finding considerable heterogeneity in the university models, we attempt to group the universities into strategic clusters where each cluster consist of institutions that specialize in the provision of similar kinds of innovation inputs with knowledge as necessary by-products that in turn drives innovation output. In an era of global innovation race, the diversity factor which is central but not often seen as crucial, we argue, shapes innovation output and give form to the university sector as a whole as an active player in national and regional systems of innovation.