Start-ups increasingly find the prospect of university-industry collaborations to\ud be a powerful driver of innovation and entrepreneurship activity. Moreover, at\ud the geographical level, they are attracted by teaching and research institutions,\ud either public or private. This paper focuses on the role played by universities.\ud Our hypothesis is that geographical proximity favors the transfer of knowledge and\ud technology from universities to industries and, consequently, represents a positive\ud factor for regional economic development.\ud Results show that university spillovers are positively correlated with the creation\ud of innovative start-ups. Furthermore, the presence of human capital (graduates)\ud exerts a significant influence on the location decisions of start-ups, being a source\ud for competitiveness for firms close to universities. Research quality, especially in\ud the social sciences area, attracts innovative start-ups, while third-mission activities\ud have a weak impact on locational choice

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Recent data on European countries show that innovation leaders perform better than economies with low levels of innovation investment and institutions that do not favor knowledge and technology transfer activities. This result confirms that to achieve a high level of performance, countries need a balanced innovation system performing well across all dimensions. More interestingly, the two most important indicators that have been driving increases in performance include new doctoral graduates and international scientific co-publications, that is, two channels of knowledge transfer from universities to firms. This special issue of the Journal of Technology Transfer is dedicated to the discussion of models of university technology transfer, mostly from a European perspective

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