International Journal of Technology Management & Sustainable Development - Volume 11, Issue 3, 2012

This theoretical and critical article explores the crucial issue of the role played by university in contributing and helping societies from the developed and developing to develop the basis for a sustainable future. It critically reviews the impact of the market economy on functioning and role of universities. The universities are increasingly perceived as failing to reduce inequalities and contribute to the development of a sustainable future. The main objective of the article is to initiate a social debate aimed at exploring and better understanding the implications of the choices being made for the future development of scientific activities, education, research, transfer and innovation.

Pedagogical research on higher education during the last decade has been mainly concerned with fostering an educational model in accordance with the recommendations of the Bologna Declaration of 1999. However, despite the remarkable progress that has been made so far, the students’ future employability is still seriously curtailed by an excessively theoretical and/or content-based training, which does not cater effectively for the development of transversal skills. The aim of this article is to report the results of a pilot experience carried out at the University of Zaragoza (Spain), in the joint programme in Law and Business Administration and Management. The goal of this project was to enhance students’ employability by supplementing the subject’s syllabus with complementary activities and tasks meant to improve some of the competencies and skills promulgated by the European Space for Higher Education, thus improving the students’ chances in today’s competitive labour market, while at the same time enhancing the quality standards of the Degree.

The aim of this article is to investigate the identification of the attitude of researchers towards entrepreneurialism and academic-entrepreneurs and the main barriers that hinder researchers’ entrepreneurialism in universities. The purpose of this research is also to identify the main reasons that determine that universities as organized institutions are passive in commercializing research findings. The mission of universities as principal knowledge-generating institutions has always been education and science; however, during the last two decades yet another mission of universities has developed, which has adequately emerged as a response to global processes, ever-changing environment, internationalization of studies and science, and increased competition.

This article explores the role of industrial clusters in the development of the Egyptian universities and research institutes (URIs) and economic performance. The study hypothesizes that the large industrial clusters in Egypt are old and traditional, and have weak impact on URIs and economic performance. To this end, we examine Egypt regions that contain long-existing and traditional industrial clusters and can be compared to all other regions. The analysis is conducted separately for seven industries, and by using a Mann–Whitney U test and a Spearman correlation we find that the more recent and technical industrial clusters in Egypt have a positive and significant impact on URIs, but they have a weak impact on economic performance. The Egyptian experience suggests that the most important contribution of clusters to URIs is one in which corporations provide financial support to universities or enter into informal consulting arrangements with a professor, neither of which is typically of professional patent applications or even through the mobility of university graduates.

This article looks into the roles innovation intermediaries play to enhance triple helix-based innovation in Thailand from the vantage point of two multinational-dominated industries, namely, the hard disk drive and automotive industries. Innovation intermediaries generally play three important roles: a sponsoring role of making and transmitting policy across all triple helix actors; a brokering role of connecting triple helix actors at strategic levels; and a boundary-spanning role of providing technical services to all triple helix actors. Comparison of the two case studies showed the sponsoring role intermediary organizations play to be crucial for the respective industries for them to be able to engage in triple helix relationship.