Reconceptualising knowledge exchange and higher education institutions: broadening our understanding of motivations, channels, and stakeholders

Abstract

This Special Issue represents an effort to go beyond a narrow notion of knowledge exchange (KE) and explicitly address broader questions related to the measurement of and incentives towards KE in Higher education institutions (HEI). Specifically, we bring attention to a number of under-researched topics in the literature. These relate to: (i) The participation of a diverse set of academic actors in KE activities–in particular, academics in emerging economies and women academics–whose role in KE is insufficiently investigated in the extant literature; (ii) academics’ engagement with under-explored KE stakeholders, specifically policymakers and the public sector; and (iii) the tensions and tradeoffs that are implicit, but often unacknowledged, in the relationship between HEIs’ traditional teaching and research activities, and KE as a third institutional mission.