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A Triple Helix System for Knowledge-based Regional Development: From Spheres to Spaces

Henry Etzkowitz1, 2, 3 and Marina Ranga1, 4, 5

1 Stanford University, US 2 Edinburgh University Business School, UK

3International Institute of Triple Helix, LaSalle Madrid, Spain 4 Stony Brook University, US

5Sussex University, UK

Abstract The Triple Helix model is increasingly relevant as a conceptual framework for regional development. Its capacity to describe the process as the result of the joint workings of the University, Industry and Government institutional spheres is expanded by introducing the novel concept of Triple Helix Spaces: Knowledge, Innovation and Consensus Spaces, which show the process and mechanisms by which the institutional spheres interact and co-evolve over time. The specific activities and formats of the Spaces provide guidelines for integrating endogenous and exogenous strategies. Our objective is to guide policy and practice at various stages in the creation and consolidation of knowledge-based regions. Introduction How can aspiring knowledge regions best learn from the world leaders? It is widely recognised that there are no universally-applicable measures for knowledge-based regional development, given widely different conditions in different world regions as, for example, emerging vs. declining industrial regions, urban vs. rural areas, etc. A general model based on a synthesis of contemporary best practice is often relied upon to provide general guidelines that are then more or less adapted to local realities in the attempt to create technopoles, innovative milieus, learning regions, clusters, industrial districts, science cities or regional innovation systems, etc. However, contemporary best practice may not always be the most productive starting point for an aspiring region, as it sets the bar very high and often ignores the early developmental phases that may be more relevant to an emerging region. Simply taking a mechanism that has been highly successful in one area and recreating it in another may not work. Rather than imitating features of late development stages in the life cycle of successful knowledge regions around the world, emerging regions may benefit more from adopting a model abstracted from the formative stages of such successful cases, and adapting it to the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of the region. This would help avoid the mistake of taking the end result of a knowledge-based growth process for the start and ignoring the long-term nature of endogenous development. An immanent Triple Helix-based approach to regional development originated in Boston during the Great Depression of the 1930s (Etzkowitz, 2002), and has since

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spread across the US and further afield to Europe, Asia and Latin America providing a dynamic framework for the interaction of a variety of institutions and stakeholders, broadly encompassed by University, Industry and Government. The positioning of the institutional spheres with respect to each other and their potential for movement and reorientation exemplifies the dynamics of the model, with one serving as a gravitational centre around which the others rotate, thus generating several Triple Helix configurations. For instance, in a statist regime (Triple Helix I), government plays the lead role, driving academia and industry. In a laissez-faire regime (Triple Helix II), industry is the driving force, with the other two spheres as ancillary support structures. In a knowledge-based society, university and other knowledge-producing institutions play an increasing role, acting in partnership with industry and government and even taking the leadership in joint initiatives, in a balanced model (Triple Helix III) (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000; Etzkowitz, 2008). If the workings of the Triple Helix I, II and III regimes are relatively well explored and are usually examined at a specific moment in time (a synchronic interaction), a methodology for analyzing the transition among Triple Helix regimes over time (a diachronic interaction) is a relatively under-conceptualized problem. In this theme paper, we aim to fill this gap and explain the transition among Triple Helix configurations by introducing the concept of Triple Helix Spaces: Knowledge, Innovation and Consensus Spaces that describe the boundary-spanning diachronic interaction among institutional spheres in the process of constructing knowledge-based innovation systems, in particular from the laissez-faire regime (independent spheres, Triple Helix II) to the balanced model (interdependent spheres, Triple Helix III) (Etzkowitz, 2003). Our vision of spaces reflects the sense conveyed by the Finnish notion of tila as space, mode, status, but also passage from one status to another. The paper is organized as follows: after a brief discussion of the Triple Helix relevance for regional development, we introduce the concept of Triple Helix systems, defined as a set of components, relationships and functions. We then discuss specific activities and formats of the Knowledge, Innovation and Consensus Spaces and the non-linear dynamics of the possible transitions between them. We conclude with the policy implications of balancing between exogenous and endogenous approaches to regional development. 1. The Triple Helix and regional development The creation and consolidation of knowledge-based regional innovation systems is the objective of Triple Helix theory and practice. Knowledge-based regions like Silicon Valley and Route 128 do not occur through spontaneous generation; they are the result of initiatives that took decades to reach fruition. In contrast to biological evolution, which arises from mutations and natural selection, social evolution occurs through institution formation and conscious intervention. The Triple Helix provides a means to guide efforts, from different starting points, to achieve the common goal of knowledge-based economic and social development. The result is a tripartite model, with intermediate mechanisms, that integrates the two traditional starting points of science and technology policy: government and industry, with a new element-the university. A 12th century institution dedicated to conserving and transmitting knowledge became the research university, focused on producing new knowledge in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and then the entrepreneurial university, with a remit for economic and social

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development, in the late 20th and early 21st century. The non-linear movement from the teaching and research university to entrepreneurial formats is an emergent phenomenon that is being charted even as it is being realised in various academic systems: US, Europe, Latin America, Asia (Etzkowitz, 1983; Benner and Sandstrom, 2000; Shane, 2004; Wright et.al. 2007; Wong, 2007; Maculan and Mello, 2009). Government intervention is also essential, on the one hand by encouraging the development of entrepreneurial universities, with the organizational capacity to take leadership roles in their regions, and on the other, by setting the rules of the game, for example by structuring intellectual property, regulatory and tax systems to foster new enterprises. Establishing agencies, like Swedens VINNOVA, to encourage universities, industry and regional authorities to promote growth projects is another important step. Innovation policy is thus directed toward enhancing the interaction between human needs and research goals, university, industry and government. Schumpeters theory of creative destruction shows how outmoded economic regimes disappeared; the Triple Helix delineates how new regimes appear. In the following, we propose the Triple Helix Spaces Knowledge, Innovation and Consensus - as part of a methodology for generating a Triple Helix Innovation System. The concept derives from the experience of New England Council from the 1920s to 1950s as a summit organisation representing regional leadership that included academia, next to industry and government, because this region had an early and unique concentration of academic resources including MIT, Harvard and a wide range of other academic institutionsthe Knowledge Space. The remit of the Council -the Consensus Space, created by the Governors of the six New England states was to develop a strategy for the renewal of a region that had been in economic decline from the early 20th century due to departure of industries and firms to regions with sources of raw materials and possessing cheap labour. After initial attempts to attract branch plants and renew SMEs in dying industries, the Council turned to the regions unique resource and comparative advantage, its high concentration of academic resources. They focused upon the start-up phenomenon of firms emanating from MIT and Harvard in scientific instruments from the turn of the century and in the newly emerging radio industry in the 1920s and invented the venture capital firm to expand and intensify this process -the Innovation Space. Capitalizing on the regions knowledge resources became the central thrust of a strategy that has since become known as knowledge-based regional economic development (Etzkowitz, 2002). In addition, information about the creation and working of the spaces draws upon recent Mexican, Brazilian, Canadian and Swedish experience, particularly derived from the first authors interviews with members and observers of various projects in Silicon Valley, Rio de Janeiro and Amsterdam, participation in meetings at the New York Academy of Sciences during the mid 1990s, interviews with members of a space in Niteroi, Brazil in 2002 and archival research in San Diego and Boston. This data collection through interviews, participant observation and archival research showed that what was initially considered to be the unique historical experience