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The research findings discussed in this paper present ideas from the second stage of a project to evaluate the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in regional economies. Using data developed through a learning region framework, the research schematically represents HEI linkages to the region . Possible linkage scenarios for each of six dimensions associated with embeddedness are presented. The findings suggest that this qualitative approach moves us closer to better capturing the complexity and role of HEI in regional development.

Agricultural land-use change is a dynamic process that varies as a function of social, economic and environmental factors spanning from the local to the global scale. The cumulative regional impacts of these factors on land use adoption decisions by farmers are neither well accounted for nor reflected in agricultural land use planning. We present an innovative spatially explicit agent-based modelling approach (Crop GIS-ABM) that accounts for factors involved in farmer decision making on new irrigation adoption to enable land-use predictions and exploration. The model was designed using a participatory approach, capturing stakeholder insights in a conceptual model of farmer decisions. We demonstrate a case study of the factors influencing the uptake of new irrigation infrastructure and land use in Tasmania, Australia. The model demonstrates how irrigated land-use expansion promotes the diffusion of alternative crops in the region, as well as how coupled social, biophysical and environmental conditions play an important role in crop selection. Our study shows that agricultural land use reflected the evolution of multiple simultaneous interacting biophysical and socio-economic drivers, including soil and climate type, crop and commodity prices, and the accumulated effects of interactive decisions of farmers.

With the recent trends towards knowledge-based urban development and networked society, information and communications technologies have increasingly played important roles in the daily lives of people for social interaction, learning, information and recreation. This research is an exploratory study on how information and communications technologies have been adopted in master planned communities of South East Queensland, Australia. It examines the four roles of information and communications technologies in the master planned communities: (1) teleworking; (2) creating a sense of community; (3) promoting integrated office and businesses; and (4) developing learning communities. More recent master planned communities in South East Queensland such as Varsity Lakes, North Lakes and Greater Springfield have integrated information and communications technologies for activities such as community internet portals, local business development, and for use in community learning centers and education facilities. There is a potential to attract knowledge workers in master planned communities through the inclusion of cultural amenities, information and communications technologies and learning infrastructure. It is important that information and communications technologies and learning infrastructure not only benefit the housing estate but also the surrounding region thus putting a foundation for a knowledge-based urban region.