Creating Innovation Culture – Role of Universities and Their Management in Fostering New Ways of Collaboration
Universities have traditionally been seen as academic temples dedicated for research and
learning. During the last twenty years we have witnessed an emphasis on the university's role
as responsible social actor. Universities have been acknowledged as essentially contributing
to the wealth and wellbeing of nations and thus as providers of knowledge and useful
technologies. Now, there seems to be a new kind of university emerging: University creating
innovation culture.
Universities have multifaceted tasks. Scientists, students and university leaders have
interacted with all kinds of agents, be it state and local authorities, private enterprises,
societal corporations or peoples’ movements. Due to this unique juxtaposition, universities
may create new ways of collaboration unattainable to other organizations. Everywhere we
see examples of this: universities bringing proactively together science, corporations and
people and thus creating new shared purposes. Universities do not only fit in the world but
also define the future. Thus Universities may invent not only new solutions to problems
known, but raise new questions, new methods, new logics, new activities,
In this seminar, we scrutinize ways to foster unconventional modes of collaboration. We
will discuss to what extent Universities have found a way to put themselves back into
the forefront of social and cultural development. At the same time we see these novel
activities challenging the traditional university management, and thus we ponder about the
possibility of university administrators cherishing and supporting rather than suffocating this
development.