This open access volume raises awareness of the histories, geographies, and practices of universities and analyzes their role as key actors in today's global knowledge economy. Universities are centers of research, teaching, and expertise with significant economic, social, and cultural impacts at different geographical scales. Scholars from a variety of disciplines and countries offer original analyses and discussions along five main themes: historical perspectives on the university as a site of knowledge production, cultural encounter, and political interest; institutional perspectives on university governance and the creation of innovative environments; relationships between universities and the city; the impact of universities on national and regional economies and cultures; and the processes of internationalization through student mobility, the creation of education hubs, and global regionalism in higher education.

This open access book presents novel conceptual and empirical insight into the geographies of knowledge and universities Offers awareness of spatial scientific relations and the local impact of universities Brings together scholars from different disciplines and countries offering a broad international overview

Autorentext

Peter Meusburger is Distinguished Senior Professor of Social and Economic Geography at Heidelberg University. His main research interests are spatial and social disparities of educational achievement; the nexus between knowledge and space; milieus of creativity; relations between knowledge and power; spatial mobility of knowledge; knowledge and economic performance, and related fields. He has published more than 300 academic papers, book chapters and books, and has edited 28 books. Peter Meusburger holds a PhD in geography from Innsbruck University. Between 1983 and 2007 he had the chair of Social and Economic Geography at Heidelberg University. He was visiting scholar in Japan, USA, Hungary, China and Brazil. He served Heidelberg University as Dean and Prorector and was president of the Association of German Geographers between 2001 and 2003. He is the editor of the Springer series Knowledge and Space.

Laura Suarsana is research associate and doctoral student at the Department of Geography at Heidelberg University. Her research interest lies in the field of social and economic geography, with a focus on civil society, philanthropy, social networks, and regional development. For her doctoral thesis, Laura Suarsana focuses on relations between civic engagement, public and common goods, and regional development. She conducted research and published on regional cooperation and networks of philanthropy and civil society in the Heilbronn-Franconia Region in Baden-Württemberg. She majored in Geography and Economics and wrote her diploma thesis on corporate social responsibility and regional development, in which she also has practical experience.

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Geographies of the University. An Introduction (Peter Meusburger).- Part 1: Historical Perspectives.- Chapter 2: The Repertorium Academicum Germanicum (RAG) and the Geography of German Universities and Academics (13501550) (Rainer C. Schwinges).- Chapter 3: Scientific and Cultural Relations between Heidelberg University and Hungary over Five Centuries (Peter Meusburger).- Chapter 4: Catchment Areas and Killing Fields: Towards an Academic Geography of the Thirty Years' War (Howard Hotson).- Chapter 5: A Political Geography of University Foundation: The Case of the Danish Monarchy (Hanne Kirstine Adriansen).- Chapter 6: 'A Small Town of Character': Locating a New Scottish University, 1963 - 1965 (Michael Heffernan).- Part II: Spaces and Governance of Knowledge, Research and Education.- Chapter 7: Knowledge Environments at Universities. Some Theoretical and Methodological Considerations (Peter Meusburger).- Chapter 8: Quality Cultures in Higher Education Institutions. Development of the Quality Culture Inventory (Christine Sattler).- Chapter 9: Agnotology: Ignorance and Absence, or Towards a Sociology of Things that Aren't There (Jennifer L. Croissant).- part III: Universities and Regional Economies.- Chapter 10: The entrepreneurial university wave: shaping a triple helix for sustainable innovation (Henry Etzkowitz).- Chapter 11: The Economic Impact of the Universities in the State of Baden-Württemberg (Johannes Glückler).- Chapter 12: African Universities as Employers of Returning Graduates from Germany. The Example of Ghana and Cameroon (Julia Boger).- Part IV: Localization, Globalization and Regional Integration of Universities.- Chapter 13: The University in its Place: Thinking in and Beyond Globalization (Allan Cochrane ).- Chapter 14: The University Unbound: How Roots and Routes Intersect (Jane Kenway).- Chapter 15: International Education Hubs (Jane Knight).- Chapter 16: The Nonmetropolitan University's Regional Engagement in the African Context: TheCase of Cameroon (Eike W. Schamp).- Chapter 17: China's Southern Borderlands and ASEAN Higher education. A Cartography of Connectivity (Anthony Welch) .- Part V: Universities and the City.- Chapter 18: The Civic University and the City (John Goddard).- Chapter 19: City and University Notes of an Architect On an Intriguing Spatial Relationship (Helmut Bott).- Chapter 20: Campus-city Relations: Past, Present and Future (Alexandra Den Heijer).- Chapter 21: Coevolution of Town and Gown: The Heidelberg International Building Exhibition in Search of a Knowledge-based Urbanism for the Twenty-first Century (Carl Zillich).- The Klaus Tschira Foundation.- Index.