University-business interaction in the Oxford and Cambridge regions

This paper explores the interplay of factors that produce specific local pa tterns of interaction between firms and universities, using survey evidence from a comparative study of two elite locations, the Oxford and Cambridge regions. It uses these examples to examine why innovating firms have extern al links, why they have them with universities, which spatial mechanisms ar e significant in the place-specific technology transfer links universities have with firms in their immediate hinterlands, and what kinds of instituti onal factors influence the form links take.