If the industrial economy ran on coal and iron ore, the fuel of today’s economy is knowledge.2 Technologies have always been underpinned by knowledge, but an economy run on knowledge is characterised by a critical role for information and communication technology (ICT), a high proportion of knowledge-intensive activity and intangible capital that amounts to more than tangible capital in the economy’s capital stock (Atkinson and Court 1998; Foray 2004).3 The emergence of the knowledge economy is not confined to high-technology and ICT services; it has spread across all sectors of market economies since the 1970s.4 Wealth creation increasingly depends on the generation and exploitation of knowledge involving not only science and technology but also knowledge of practice required to create economic value (Gibbons et al. 1994). That knowledge plays an important role in the economy is not a new idea or finding. Every economy is based on knowledge of farming, mining, and construction (Mokyr 2002). Knowledge, embodied in people and technology has always been central to economic development. But only over recent decades has its importance received so much emphasis (Harris 2001). The OECD economies are more than ever dependent on the production, distribution and use of knowledge (OECD 1996).