Abstract
Interest towards the contribution of higher education institutions (HEIs) to the development of their surrounding regions is not a new phenomenon. This is illustrated by the establishment (in the late 1800s) of land-grant colleges in North America and technical and civic universities in Germany and England, respectively.
What is new, however, is the criticality of knowledge structures to the competitiveness of localities, regions, and nations, a direct consequence of the rise of the post-industrial, knowledge-based economy, and, subsequently, the market value attributed to knowledge-intensive goods and services. As the quintessential knowledge institution of modernity, HEIs are at the forefront of such developments and have, in recent years, been identified as basic pillars to the competitiveness of nations and regions (see the paper by Kohoutek et al. in this special issue).