ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY: A KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE PERSPECTIVE

Along the shift to a knowledge-based economy, universities around the world are under increasing pressure to transform themselves and develop different types of external relationships in order to exchange knowledge. The Triple Helix framework stresses the importance of trilateral and hybrid networks between universities, industry and government for the purpose of creation, use and exchange of knowledge and innovation. Since 2000 Croatian government has invested decisive efforts into founding a framework for university-industry cooperation and commercialization of research, but these efforts only slowly produce the expected results. This paper seeks to contribute to the growing body of literature on the Triple Helix Systems and entrepreneurial university by discussing the possibilities and examples of knowledge exchange and networking at a HEI which takes steps to enhance its potential for academic entrepreneurship. Based on the available faculty documents, as well as the results of interviews with faculty members, the study concludes that increasingly staff at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek engage in knowledge exchange and maintain cooperation with partners in industry and government. At the same time, it is important to observe that faculty opinions towards knowledge exchange and networking differ significantly.