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This paper explores the interplay of factors that produce specific local patterns of interaction between firms and universities, using survey evidence from a comparative study of two e´lite locations, the Oxford and Cambridge regions. It uses these examples to examine why innovating firms have external links, why they have them with universities, which spatial mechanisms are significant in the place-specific technology transfer links universities have with firms in their immediate hinterlands, and what kinds of institutional factors influence the form links take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the financing options of universities and colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, England, between 1871 and 1913. The gross income of 12 colleges in Cambridge was ascertained to have been approximately 137,700 pounds per annum, in 1850, and estimated that of all 17 colleges at not less than 185,000 pounds per annum. Broadly comparable figures for 1871 were 221,600 pounds and 279,000 pounds. The increase was due to the running out of leases. This system of "beneficial leases" was distinctly disadvantageous for landlords, and by the 1840's reformers were seeking to move towards one of rack-rent. Neither Cambridge nor Oxford colleges spent unreasonably: after 1883 repairs accounted for between 11 and 24 per cent of gross income from land and housing, as compared with an automatic income-tax allowance for this purpose of 12 and a half per cent and a maximum allowance of 25 per cent. At Cambridge expenditure rose sharply to a peak in 1883; and thereafter most colleges clearly sought to economize on repairs, at least until the greater prosperity of the twentieth century. Oxford colleges were slower to increase their expenditure.