Forms of knowledge, spatial strategy making, and academic involvement

Patsy Healey’s contribution is very important for understanding how ideas are generated and used in spatial strategy making with regard to the role of academics. In my essay, I try to deepen her analysis, with particular attention to the Italian situation and taking into account a number of issues she does not deal with: the role of different systems of academic governance in different countries in making the circulation of ideas and the relationships between academe and its social and political environment more or less effective; acknowledgement that the universities cannot be considered as unitary, homogeneous actors since this situation affects the production of interactive knowledge, the generation of communities of practices, and power distribution both in urban situations and in the academic sphere; and the consequences for social learning and policy change of two basic practices of academic involvement: partisanship and partnership.