Builder, broker, beacon and base: Universities as anchor institutions

This paper examines universities as anchor institutions in order to contribute to geographies of education and geographies of embeddedness. It is possible to identify four dimensions of anchoring with reference to recent scholarly work: Universities have the capacity to build local community, broker relationships, serve as beacons and operate as a base for community engagement. Consideration of universities as builder, broker, beacon and base highlights the qualified success of some universities in local engagement and offers a conceptual scaffold for reflection on universities’ progressive potential. It also highlights the importance of place-based embeddedness and trans-local flows in analysing complex organisations.