DO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PARKS PROMOTE UNIVERSITY- INDUSTRY LINKAGES IN PAKISTAN?

Abstract

In recent times, science and technology parks are widely used as policy tools for development of knowledge base regions or clusters in developed and developing countries. These parks provide resources to firms for the development of technological and innovative capabilities. This paper discusses the role of science and technology parks in fostering university-industry interactions in developing countries perspectives. The research was based on case study of Software Technology Parks (STPs) located in Islamabad, Pakistan as primary source to gather the data. The results  show no evidence for STPs of Islamabad to play any significant role in promoting and strengthening linkages between industry and academia in Pakistan, only 19% firms had linkages with higher education institutions and most of these linkages were human resource (19%) or informal (12.5%) linkages.