This article explores the micro-dimensions of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) with the aim of developing an appreciation of the personal interactions that facilitate the success of these university-industry collaborations. Empirical evidence concerning the operation of three KTPs, collected through interviews with the key KTP partners and the review of relevant documentary material, is analysed through the lens of the Communities of Practice approach to situated learning. The analysis of three case studies provides evidence to support the value of conceptualising the process of knowledge transfer between universities and industry as one of learning taking place within communities in which the development of mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoires play important roles facilitating successful collaborations. Moreover, the analysis highlights the significance of the boundary spanning roles of the KTP partners in facilitating the knowledge transfer process through engagement in both the university and industry communities. By illuminating the dimensions of the inter-personal interactions the CoPs analysis provides the foundations for recommendations to improve university-industry KTPs, in particular, and, interorganisational knowledge transfer initiatives in general.

There are different dimensions to the role played by universities in regional innovation. One\ud perspective is to examine the different forms of knowledge and knowledge transfer in the form of commodified knowledge, human capital and social capital. A second perspective is to look at different governance and policy contexts and consider national systems of higher education, national programmes for regional innovation as well as regionally specific interactions. Examples of university engagement in Europe across these different scales are presented. Overall, there is a need for integration and joining up of policies at the regional scale

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The regional role of universities is of increasing concern both to the managers of universities and to regional and national policymakers. Changes in the external environment are having a significant effect on the nature of the university and its approach to managing its interactions with external stakeholders, especially at a regional scale. Changes in the conceptualisation of regional development and in regional strategies also place universities more centrally to new policies. In the UK, since the late 1990s, a number of new national initiatives have dramatically increased the support for regional engagement in parallel with the application of regional level policies towards university activities. In consequence survey evidence suggests a growing focus on local and regional communities in university missions, but with a varying degree of identification for specific territorial scales. New institutional arrangements or responses include internal changes within universities such as new regional offices, and more significantly perhaps new collaborative regional arrangements and associations.