Knowledge Flows, Spatial Strategy Making, and the Roles of Academics

I explore the contribution of academics to the activity of spatial strategy making for urban areas. I focus on how academics have been involved in such policy formation work, their contribution to the framing of key strategic concepts, the extent to which academic contributions have affected the understanding of urban and regional dynamics embodied in such frames, and the role of academics in legitimating the strategies produced. I use examples from cases from Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK to highlight the significance of the institutional contexts in which academics have been drawn into spatial strategy-making activity, and the different kinds of relationships which have developed. I conclude that more attention is needed to this issue, in the context of improving the knowledge ability of spatial strategy-making practices, encouraging more reflexivity among academics involved in such activity about the institutional dynamics and ethical challenges of such involvement, and promoting more attention among policy makers to how they use experts in different kinds of institutional context when undertaking spatial strategy-making work.