Creating knowledge networks: higher education, industry and innovation in South Africa

Abstract

This article focuses on a new organisational form that is emerging in the South African context - knowledge networks of higher education, industry and intermediary partners. The article focuses on seven case studies in two high-technology fields and their related industrial sectors - biotechnology, being relatively new, and new materials development, being relatively mature in South Africa. It shows the complex nature of the research partners at each node of a network, and of the structure and dynamics of the interaction that results. The study suggests that we need to open up the ideal enshrined in South African policy, of the desirability of research partnerships to more informed analysis of the complexity of creating networks, in specific industrial sub-sectors, knowledge fields and institutional contexts. The major insight offered for developing countries like South Africa is the value of a contextualized analysis for informing cross-sectoral coordination of interventions within a national system of innovation.