Positioning the Western Cape Province as a Knowledge Hub: An Exploratory Study

Mthente was appointed by the University of Mauritius to assess the potential of positioning the Western Cape Province as a knowledge hub in a globalising world economy.   The study explored whether the Western Cape possessed the critical success factors to become an internationally competitive knowledge hub that could contribute towards South Africa’s national economic goals of economic growth, employment creation and poverty reduction.  This is due to international evidence suggesting that the answer to this policy questions lies with understanding the dimensions of creating a knowledge hub.  A knowledge hub has been defined by the University of Mauritius as an “ensemble of knowledge-intensive institutions and organisations (public, private and overseas) that generate, store, transfer, apply and transmit knowledge through education and training with the overall objective of fostering economic and social development.”