Int. J. Research, Innovation and Commercialisation, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2017 23 Copyright © 2017 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Universities as cornerstones in science, technology and innovation ecosystems Yunus Çengel Department of Mechanical Engineering, Adnan Menderes University, Aydin, 09010, Turkey and University of Nevada, Reno, USA Email: yunus.cengel@yahoo.com Abstract: Knowledge, technology and the related infrastructure play a central role in a country’s economic growth and global competitiveness. The two critical components of the science, technology and innovation (STI) infrastructure are education and information and communication technologies (ICT) that facilitate innovation and economic growth. The higher education institutions constitute an important part of this STI infrastructure by educating and training new generation to meet future demand by knowledge-intensive industries for high-skilled workers. No economic policy is drafted and implemented without referencing R&D activities that result in the advancement of S&T. A key indicator for an economy’s knowledge- and technology- intensive status is the share of knowledge- and technology-intensive industries’ share of gross domestic product (GDP). This paper attempts to give an overall assessment for the innovation ecosystem, and the key role the academic institutions play in it. Keywords: science; technology; innovation; STI; STI ecosystem; universities; R&D; knowledge economy; creativity; education; higher education institutions. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Çengel, Y. (2017) ‘Universities as cornerstones in science, technology and innovation ecosystems’, Int. J. Research, Innovation and Commercialisation, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.23–40. Biographical notes: Yunus Çengel is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Adnan Menderes University, Turkey, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Nevada, Reno, USA. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University, and served as a faculty member at the University of Nevada, Reno for 18 years. He was the Director of the Industrial Assessment Center and served as a consultant in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy policies. He is the author or coauthor of the several widely adopted engineering textbook such as Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach, whose eighth edition was published in 2014. This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘Universities as cornerstones in science, technology and innovation ecosystems’ presented at WRICET 2012, World Research and Innovation Convention on Engineering and Technology 2012, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 3–5 December 2012.