Gauging Readiness for the Quadruple Helix: A Study of 16 European Organizations
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Gauging Readiness for the Quadruple Helix: A Study of 16 European Organizations Steven P. MacGregor & Pilar Marques-Gou & Alexandra Simon-Villar
Received: 3 March 2010 / Accepted: 23 June 2010 / Published online: 23 July 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract The aim of this paper is to explore the readiness for the quadruple helix in 16 European innovation ecosystems, all within medium-sized cities. Based on qualitative empirical research, we present and analyze the current innovation architecture to support cooperation, cospecialization, and coopetition between actors, and the main functions carried out within the system. This allows us to discuss whether quadruple-helix innovation architecture (Q-HIA) evolves from triple-helix architectures. We also aim to provide some hints on when, how, and why Q-HIA exists. This research can contribute to the definition and streamlining of the role of local and regional actors, mainly policy makers, within the innovation ecosystem. Lessons may be transferred to many medium-sized cities as they battle to remain competitive in the context of increasing global competition and scale threats. Keywords Quadruple helix . SMEs . Innovation . Entrepreneurship . Medium-sized cities . Policy design
Introduction The social and economic context of 2010 sees the world at a time of profound change. In all likelihood, the crisis will accelerate changes already occuring in innovation systems: the increasing internationalization of investments in innovation, the increasing importance of “open” innovation strategies that rely on partnerships and collaboration to share costs and spread risk, and the broadening of the range of actors who are innovating, including users and consumers making use of the Internet and information and communication technologies (ICTs) as collaborative platforms. Policy instruments will have to be adapted to the more international and open character of innovation as well as to the central importance of nontechnological S. P. MacGregor (*) : P. Marques-Gou : A. Simon-Villar Faculty of Economics, University of Girona, Campus Montilivi, 17071 Gerona, Spain e-mail: [email protected]
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J Knowl Econ (2010) 1:173–190
innovation and the role of civil society in the innovation process. By extension, it could be that the quadruple-helix model of innovation is both necessary and a natural extension of the way we innovate. The OECD [18] points to innovation as the key to a durable recovery. We believe that innovation may be strengthened by increasing the uptake of the quadruple helix and have investigated the readiness for quadruplehelix implementation in 16 city municipalities and innovation service providers across Europe, with a view to uncovering the general conditions in which the quadruple helix may flourish. The research described in this paper was carried out by a team at the University of Girona in Catalonia, Spain as part of the CLIQ project,1 a European-funded research project led by the City of Jyväskylä in Finland and comprising 16 part
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