From the 
Editor's 
Desk 

Ernest A. Lynton 

I recently attended an international workshop dealing with innovation and re-

gional economic development, held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. 
That not only provided me with an opportunity to visit, once again, one of the most 

beautiful cities on this continent, but also to gain a most interesting insight into 

current thinking about the topic of the meeting. In essence, science and technology 
based economic development has come to be recognized-in the words of one par-
ticipant-as being lumpy. It does not occur uniformly across an entire country, or 
state, or province. Rather, regions, and most typically regions including one or more 
metropolitan areas, are emerging as the central focus of economic activity as a result 

of the flow of goods, services, and investments, and-with ever increasing impor-

tance-the flow of information and knowledge. Those regions that excel in this will 

be the engines of growth for the province, state, or nation of which they are a part. 

A major reason for the importance of regions in development in a knowledge-

intensive economy is that the flow ofknowledge is not in one direction only. As I put 

it in a contribution to this journal last year, "knowledge is not an inert commodity, 

created in laboratory, library, or study, to be ... dispensed like a patent medicine .. . .It 

is dynamic, constantly made fresh and given new shape by its interaction with imme-

diate issues and concerns ... the domain of knowledge has no one-way streets ... .It is 

everywhere fed back, constantly enhanced." As a result, development in a knowl-

edge-intensive society is increasingly dependent on multiple and effective feedback 

loops linking those involved in research and development with those who deal with 

application and distribution of knowledge-based products. It requires a dense, multi-

faceted, and multidirectional interaction which is most effective when there is prox-

imity. 

The new recognition of the pivotal function of the region of course reinforces the 

importance of the role of metropolitan universities. They are committed to working 

with and for their regional constituencies both in the provision of a wide variety of 

formal instruction to students of all ages and backgrounds, and in carrying out ap-

plied research and professional service in areas germane to the interests of their 

region. This makes them key components in the knowledge-centered infrastructure 

essential to regional development. 

The Winter 1991 and part of the Spring 1992 issues of Metropolitan Universi-

ties were devoted to regional development. They contained descriptions of a number 

of pertinent programs and projects. Professor Hans SchUtze of the University of 

British Columbia, organizer of and substantial contributor to the workshop I have 

described, has agreed to guest edit a future issue of the journal that will place such 
activities within a conceptual context by describing current understanding of re-

gional development. The issue will contain a number of articles adapted from pre-

sentations at the Vancouver conference as well as other pertinent contributions. 



4 Metropolitan Universities/Fall 1995 

The quality of community health is, of course, also a major factor in regional 

development, and one to which metropolitan universities can contribute substan-

tially. I am grateful to David Bell and Dan Johnson for their work as guest editors of 

the current issue that, thanks to them, contains a number of interesting articles on 

this topic. Also in this issue are a number of other contributions of great interest to 
our institutions. One of these, by Leslie Wagner, head of Leeds Metropolitan Uni-
versity in Great Britain, strikingly illustrates the similarity of issues and challenges 
across national borders. We look forward to increasing contact with our colleagues 

abroad on matters of shared concern. 
I want to draw our readers' attention as well to the Call for Proposals for short 

term research projects on topics of direct pertinence to metropolitan universities. 

The call constitutes a welcome initiative by the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan 

Universities, one that is intended to serve the needs of its member institutions in 

additional ways. We look forward to the eventual publication of the research reports 

in the journal. 

With this issue we bid farewell and express our gratitude to its former Publisher, 

John Brain, who for more than two years took charge of the many facets of publish-

ing the journal beyond the selection and content editing of manuscripts. We are all 

much in his debt. His responsibilities have been assumed by Marilyn "Matty" 

Mattsson, whom we are happy to welcome. She has had much experience with 
publishing as managing editor of several technical and scientific journals, is a con-

tractual writer/editor for several applied research organizations, and teaches in the 
Professional Writing program at Towson State. 


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