The ‘Grand Challenges’ of the Triple Helix

1. The ‘Grand Challenges’ of the
Triple Helix
Marina Ranga
Triple Helix Research Group, H-STAR Institute, Stanford University
Triple Helix Workshop ‘Building the Entrepreneurial University’
Stanford, 12 November 2012

2. The ‘Grand Challenges’ concept
• Defined by the 2009 Lisbon Treaty and formalized in the Europe 2020
Strategy, referring to:
• global warming
• energy supply and security
• poverty
• water scarcity and quality
• food supply and quality
• ageing society
• public health
• international terrorism
• changes in the world economy
• significant social, economic and environmental implications.
• Wide consensus on the key role that STI play in addressing the grand
challenges, and on the need for an integrated approach, going beyond
specific sectors, institutions, technologies or policy domains.

3. The ‘Grand Challenges’ of the Triple Helix
1. Provide a systemic approach of innovation – ‘Triple Helix Systems’
2. Enhance visibility at the regional innovation policy-making and practice
level – ‘smart specialization’ of regions
3. Provide new education methods and business models - innovation in
Higher Education
- Technology as a disruptive enabler of new education business models
- New distribution channels and new providers of knowledge and education
- Global demand for education and internationalisation
4. Enhance visibility at the higher level of innovation policy-making, e.g. EU
(Horizon 2020),OECD, etc. – Triple Helix Ambassadors

4. 1. Provide a systemic approach of innovation –
‘Triple Helix Systems’
• TH moving away from being a more or less sophisticated academic concept
to being a ‘building brick’ of everyday’s innovation policy & practice
- shift from mono-disciplinary  multi/interdisciplinary research
- shift from single  hybrid occupations and institutions, esp. at U-I interface
- shift from linear non-linear professional development, career flexibility
• TH innovation moving beyond innovation primarily as a firm-centred process
to innovation involving multiple stakeholders
- Consolidation of the Entrepreneurial University
- Shift to open innovation systems, networks, clusters;
- Co-existence of top-down and bottom-up strategies and partnerships
- Increasing recognition of non-R&D innovation and public sector innovation
• TH innovation outcomes no longer limited to products, processes and
technologies, but having broad social and cultural implications:
- higher education: social models of entrepreneurs
- labour market and employment: create more and better jobs
- competitiveness and sustainable economic growth, especially in the
context of the economic crisis: innovation largely absent from reform strategies of
debt-stricken countries
•

5. From Triple Helix ‘spheres’ to ‘spaces’
Consensus Space
State
Industry Academia
Knowledge Space
Innovation in innovation Innovation Space
time
Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000) Ranga and Etzkowitz (2012)

6. Triple Helix Systems: components, relationships, functions
1. Components: U-I-G institutional spheres and specific actors
a) R&D and non-R&D innovators
b) “Single-sphere” and “multi-sphere” (hybrid) institutions
- High specialization and work centralization, limited mobility of workers,
rigid and inertial institutional boundaries, low interaction with entities of
another institutional sphere
-Smaller-scale hierarchies, fewer layers and more decentralized decision-
making, increased flexibility and responsiveness to changing market
demand, permeability of institutional boundaries
a) Distinction between individuals and institutions
-Individuals: the ‘Innovation Organizer’, the Entrepreneurial Scientist

7. Triple Helix Systems: components, relationships, functions
2. Relationships:
a.Collaboration and conflict moderation, turning tension and conflict of
interest into convergence of interest and ‘win-win’ situations.
b.Collaborative leadership: ensures the success of a heterogeneous
team to accomplish a shared purpose. Essential role of ‘Innovation
Organizer” + mix of top-down and bottom-up processes to build
agreement, generate support for new ideas.
c.Substitution: institutional spheres fill gaps that emerge when another
sphere is weak, e.g. government and public venture capital, universities,
and technology transfer and firm formation, industry developing training
and research.
d. Networking into formal and informal structures at national, regional and
international level

8. Triple Helix Systems: components, relationships, functions
3. Functions: Knowledge, Innovation and Consensus , realised through:
• Knowledge Space: knowledge generation, diffusion and use from
R&D and non-R&D activities
• Innovation Space: formation and functioning of hybrid organizations
that promote innovation.
•Consensus Space: formal and informal governance activities that
bring together the U-I-G actors to brainstorm, discuss, evaluate
advancement towards a knowledge-based regime.
•TH Spaces consider time as the 4th dimension (four-dimensional
spaces), diachronic interaction among U-I-G in constructing innovation
systems:
• Triple Helix Spaces do not replace the ‘spheres’, they work in tandem to
provide an engine for regional renewal  a new paradigm for regional
development policy and practice.

9. TH Systems improvements compared to the NIS
• Fine-grained description of system actors, relationships and
functioning through a diachronic transition between the Knowledge,
Innovation and Consensus Spaces.
• Inclusion of both institutional and individual actors: the former
through the ‘single-sphere’ and ‘multi-sphere’ (hybrid) organizational
formats, and the latter, with concepts like the ‘innovation organizer’
and ‘entrepreneurial scientist
•TH Systems supersede sectoral and technology boundaries 
circulation across UIG boundaries, to allow combination of regional
and local resources for realising joint objectives and new institutional
formats in any of the Knowledge, Innovation and Consensus spaces.

10. 2. Enhance visibility at the regional innovation policy-
making and practice level - ‘smart specialization’ of regions
Increasing role of regions as the critical nexus for innovation:
• Widening disparities across and within countries after the crisis  a
regional approach of innovation needed for maintaining national growth
• Top 10% performing regions of OECD countries account for around 40%
of OECD GDP, employment and population growth in the past 15 years
• Narrowing gap between urban and rural areas in some countries slower
growth rate in many large metropolitan regions, faster in rural regions
• Around 10% of OECD regions account for 1/3 of total OECD R&D
expenditure and 50%+ of patent applications (JP, DE, US + DK, ES, ROK)
• Several regions catching up with national leaders in high-tech
manufacturing employment and knowledge-intensive sectors
(OECD Regions at a Glance, 2011)

11. 2. Enhance visibility at the regional innovation policy-
making and practice level - ‘smart specialization’ of regions
‘Smart specialization’
• See Foray, D., P. A. David and B. Hall (2009), Smart Specialisation – The Concept, Knowledge Economists
Policy Brief n° 9, June 2009 at http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/pdf/download_en/kfg_policy_brief_no9.pdf
• EU Smart Specialisation Platform http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/home
• No top-down industrial policy in accord with a pre-conceived “grand plan”, nor a
foresight exercise, but a process of developing a vision, identifying competitive
advantage, setting strategic priorities and making use of smart policies to maximise
the knowledge-based development potential of any region, strong or weak, high-tech
or low-tech.
• Leader regions invest in the invention of a General Purpose technology (GPT) or the
combination of different GPTs (bioinformatics)
• Follower regions invest in the « co-invention of applications » - i.e. development of
the applications of a GPT in one or several important domains of the regional
economy (e.g. biotechnology applications to exploitation of maritime resources;
nanotechnology applied to wine quality control, fishing, cheese and olive oil industries;
IT to the maintenance of archaeological and historical patrimony).

12. 2. Enhance visibility at the regional innovation policy-
making and practice level - ‘smart specialization’ of regions
Advantages:
• Follower regions become part of a realistic and practicable competitive
environment, players more symmetrically endowed
• Creation of viable market niches, less exposure to larger external
competitors
• Retaining regional human capacities and resources formed in particular
through regional higher education, professional training and research
programmes as «co-specialised assets »
• Shift from competing regions (zero-sum game) to collaborating regions
(win-win, value creation game), creation of regional consortia to combine
and amplify strengths, identifying ‘local champions’ and leaders to
promote and manage the change;
• Shift from a traditional exogenous development strategy, attracting
MNCs subsidiaries to the region to boost development, to an endogenous
one, based on local capacity-building and investment in local talent and
infrastructure

13. 3. Provide new education methods - innovation in Higher Education
-Technology as a disruptive enabler of new education business models
•Technology seen as a means to break down geographic, ethnic/racial,
economic barriers to education, increase HE access to more students,
alleviate capacity constraints, capitalize on emerging market opportunities.
• Universities offering online/distance education are perceived as modern
and technologically] competent, thus creating a competitive advantage.
- New distribution channels and new providers of knowledge and
education
• Knowledge-intensive enterprises develop more and more own proprietary
education and training solutions (GoogleEDU, Pixar University, Intel
Academy, Cisco Academy, Apple University)
• By 2015, 25 mil postsecondary students in the US will take classes online,
and students taking classes exclusively on physical campuses falling from
14.4 mil in 2010 to just 4.1 mil in 2015 (Ambient Insight, 2012).
•7% growth rate per year of U.S. market for distance learning-related
products in HE education  6.1 billion by 2015 (ibid).
•US Department of Education estimates the total U.S. market for
postsecondary education is more than $386 billion (Apollo Group, 2010)

14. 3. Provide new education methods - innovation in Higher Education
- Global demand for education and internationalisation
• Need to provide HE access to a student population with changing
demographics, increasing mobility and knowledge of new technologies,
expecting widely available customized learning everywhere in the world.
• Massification of HE and availability of financial aid for students
• Growth in tuition prices
- New HE business models and new policies that sustain rather than stifle
new providers and products are necessary.
- Multiple challenges in implementing such new models and policies, as
they touch upon the basic cost structure, delivery system and organization
of traditional HE.

15. 4. Enhance visibility at the higher level of innovation policy-making,
e.g. EU (Europe 2020),OECD, etc. – Triple Helix Ambassadors
Europe 2020
Priorities Flagship initiatives
Smart growth: • ‘Innovation Union’ (Innovation)
developing an economy based on • ‘Youth on the move’ (Education)
knowledge and innovation • ‘Digital agenda for Europe’ (Digital
Society)
Sustainable growth: • ‘Resource-efficient Europe’ (Climate,
promoting a more resource-efficient, energy and mobility)
greener and more competitive economy. • ‘An industrial policy for the globalisation
era’ (Competitiveness)
Inclusive growth: • ‘An agenda for new skills and jobs’
fostering a high-employment economy (Employment and skills)
delivering social and territorial cohesion • ‘European platform against poverty’
(Fighting poverty)

16. Action lines derived from the Flagship Initiatives (1)
Innovation Union
- Foster excellence and smart specialisation, reinforce cooperation between
universities, research and business, implement joint programmes and enhance cross-
border co-operation in areas with value added, adjust national funding procedures to
ensure technology diffusion;
– Ensure a sufficient supply of STEM graduates and focus school curricula on
creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship;
– Prioritise knowledge expenditure, including by using tax incentives and other
financial instruments to promote greater private R&D investments.
Youth on the Move
- Ensure efficient investment in education and training systems at all levels;
- Improve educational outcomes, addressing each segment within an integrated
approach, encompassing key competences and reducing early school leaving;
- Enhance the openness and relevance of education systems by building national
qualification frameworks and better gearing learning towards labour market needs.

17. Action lines derived from the Flagship Initiatives (2)
An industrial policy for the globalisation era
- Improve business environment especially for innovative SMEs, including through
public procurement;
- Enforcing intellectual property;
- Reduce administrative burden on companies, and improve business legislation
An Agenda for new skills and jobs
- Reduce labour market segmentation, facilitate transitions;
– Review and monitor tax benefit systems, with particular focus on the low skilled,
whilst removing measures that discourage self-employment;
– Promote new forms of work-life balance and increase gender equality;
– Promote and monitor effective implementation of social dialogue;
– Ensure acquisition and recognition of competences for further learning and the
labour market throughout general, vocational, higher and adult education, including
non formal and informal learning;

18. Triple Helix Ambassadors – Nominations welcome!
See http://www.triplehelixassociation.org
Designated by the Triple Helix Association for increasing public awareness, visibility and
understanding of Triple Helix issues, as well as for inspiring broad, positive and
committed action in support of these issues.
Triple Helix Ambassadors:
• Have national and international professional recognition in the scientific, business and/or
government fields, particularly in the innovation, scientific research, technological
development, technology transfer, entrepreneurship, venture capital and other Triple Helix-
relevant policy and practice areas. Other fields with significant social and cultural impact (e.g.
science diplomacy, media, particularly innovation journalism, etc.) may also be considered;
•Are persons of integrity who demonstrate strong desire and capacity to help mobilize public
interest in, and support for, the purposes and principles of TH interactions, and who
demonstrate the commitment and proven potential to reach out to significant audiences;
•Possess the personality and authority required for such high-level representative capacity;
• Are influential beyond their national borders and can promote the TH values internationally;
• Are knowledgeable about TH theoretical and practical goals and activities and are able to
articulate them.

19. THANK YOU!
marina.ranga@stanford.edu