Promoting university-business cooperation in developing countries: evidence from Central Asia

Successful innovation and university-business cooperation (UBC) requires the creation of platforms dedicated to the generation and exploitation of innovation and realisation of value. UBC is an accepted and expected feature of the higher education and innovation landscapes of developed countries, but has not yet become institutionalised or well understood in developing economies. This research was conducted in Central Asia (CA). The paper takes an instutional perspective based on a group of 14 case studies of the design, development and implementation of new UBC intermediary agencies. Few relevant studies have been undertaken in CA and exploring the fit between the culture of CA economies and their HEIs is an important addition to our overall understanding of UBC. Whilst care needs to be exercised in generalising findings from this context, there are useful lessons to be learned which have much wider application.