It is accepted that knowledge and competencies are key drivers of innovation. Knowledge is a key resource to manage if innovative efforts are to succeed. Despite this, it is noted that the process is intricate, complex, and difficult to manage. To facilitate understanding and management of this process, in-depth studies into the roles of network actors, implications of network characteristics over time, and greater understanding of interaction effects is required. This paper analyzes how a social network perspective can inform the key stages of a knowledge management for innovation process and conducts an exploration of this process on three university-industry knowledge networks. The set of findings reflect the evolution of the structural, relational, and cognitive social capital components and identify the most valuable characteristics relevant at each phase of the innovation process.