University and innovation district symbiosis in the context of placemaking: Insights from Australian cities

Surabhi Pancholi, Tan Yigitcanlar, Mirko Guaralda, Severine Mayere, Glenda Amayo Caldwell and Richard Medland

Land Use Policy, 2020, vol. 99, issue C

Abstract: Innovation districts are a new land-use type, where public and private actors work towards fostering, attracting, and retaining investment and talent to revitalise urban areas and boost knowledge/innovation economy activities. Developing innovation districts has become a popular urban strategy across the globe. They are often co-located with universities to act as a critical anchor in their socio-spatial and operational matrices. Despite the role of universities in the knowledge/innovation economy being researched extensively, university and innovation district symbiosis, particularly in the context of placemaking, is an understudied area of research. This paper aims to investigate the socio-cultural role played by anchor universities in facilitating placemaking in innovation districts. The study adopts a qualitative approach to analyse how stakeholders perceive Australian innovation districts. The findings reveal that: (a) Universities play pivotal roles as facilitators of placemaking through societal integration in innovation districts; (b) Universities act as platforms for collaboration and exchange of knowledge by adopting extroverted and collaborative approaches; (c) Universities help in developing a sense of trust within the community and establishing innovation districts as democratic, cohesive and prosperous localities; (d) Universities contribute to socio-cultural and organisational maturity of innovation districts.

Keywords: Innovation district; Placemaking; University; Knowledge and innovation economy; Macquarie Park Innovation District; Kelvin Grove Urban Village (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837720309078
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:99:y:2020:i:c:s0264837720309078

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105109

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().