Enhancing Vienna's Knowledge-base
The purpose of this project is to begin defining and assessing knowledge resources on which the future of Vienna's economy lies and to identify ways of strengthening different types of knowledge cultures and creating conditions conducive transforming knowledge into local development. Decision makers in a wide range of knowledge-based activities are being brought into a dialogue about Vienna 's knowledge-base about the importance of strenghtening the knowledge-infrastructure, of identifying key knowledge resources, their core competencies, and their development potentials, ways to increase innovation and synergies between different knowledge cultures, related issues and their implications for city planning.
The approach is being introduced and critical issues are identified during interviews with roughly 40 decision makers from leading organizations, who depend on different types of knowledge, understanding the nature of knowledge-based development and recognizing its growing importance in wealth creation. The project will create a forum for the dialogue, prepare the dialogue and provide a mechanism for articulating the concerns of participants so they can be formulated into concrete proposals. The first forum is planned for the end of June 1994.
The project provides a framework for:
- Institutionalizing a high-level collective learning process about the nature of knowledge-based development;
- Rethinking the nature of the city's development and defining its roJe as a knowledge center in Europe;
- Improving communications among activities within the knowledge sector and between the knowledge sector and the city;
- Identifying strengths and weaknesses of Vienna 's knowledge-base and opportunities and threats that are on the horizon;
- Elaborating ways this new economic-base can be strengthened and knowledge resources can be transformed into local development.
Dr. Knight is a professor of Economlcs in Paris. He is a political economist specializing in the development of cities and knowledge-based development. He has a background in civil engineering (Tufts Univ. Boston), marketing research, economic torecasting, a BSc. Columbia Univ., NY., a Ph.D. from London School of Economics and is concerned primarily with the role of cities in society and how cities envision and shape their future.
He authored or co-authored The Metropalifan Economy. 1970, Emp/ovment Expansion and Metropalifan Trade, 1973, and Suburbanization and the City, 1976, and co-edited and contributed to Cities in the 21st Century, 1982, Cities in a Global Society, 1989, and The Future of Urban Environments, 1994.