Back to the future of high technology fantasies? Reframing the role of knowledge parks and science cities in innovation-based economic development

This chapter contributes to debates around technopoles and science cities by focusing on the knowledge-based urban development (KBUD), processes potentially created by these new kinds of urban space. It focuses on one side of the university-firm collaboration nexus, namely those academics involved in technopole developments. The chapter focuses on how proximity features within academics motivations for engaging with local actors, and investigates why do academics choose to engage with non-academic research partners within knowledge community precincts (KCPs). To address this question, the chapter focuses on one particular KCP, the case of Kennispark in the east of the Netherlands, where regional actors including university, the public sector and firms have tried to create a single knowledge district for the Twente region. The publication of Technopoles of the World sparked a huge interest in the use of high-technology industrial complexes as a means of driving innovation-based economic development.