Special issue: Triple Helix and the new production of academic knowledge

Organizing this Special Issue of Industry and Higher Education was challenging in many aspects. First of all, this was a pre-pandemic idea. The first call for papers was released in 2019. Although some of the writing of the papers was done prior to the crazy years that followed, reviewing, rewriting and polishing up the manuscripts, and all editorial work took place from 2020 to 2022. Needless to say, the authors, reviewers and editors had not planned for the pandemic and for the strong demands it imposed on all those involved with academic activities. It was not just a matter of figuring out completely new ways of interacting with students, supervising research work, etc., which are specific to those in education, but of having to do all that while coping with the same stress and sorrow everyone else was experiencing.

A few months before this major health crisis, around June 2019, the Guest Editors of this Special Issue were having a friendly conversation about the challenges and potential for the contribution of university research laboratories to our societies. We were talking in a cafe close to Henry Etzkowitz’s place in Palo Alto, California. Besides Henry, the other three people at the table were a PhD candidate and two professors from Brazilian universities. We all knew that universities in emerging countries could be very important to the local development of their regions. We were also aware, however, that the lack of resources and experience in sharing knowledge with industry and government posed additional barriers to the functioning of university research laboratories as committed partners in the improvement of local realities.

The conversation about this Special Issue commenced with the idea of bringing to light examples of university research that had been locally impactful with respect to social and economic innovation. Of course, that was just the starting point. We soon realized that success cases mostly involved challenging the traditional structures and rearranging organizations such that the Triple Helix benefits to society were not just a result of cooperation among previously existing entities: rather, they were the consequence of a deliberate design of organizations and their interplay to foster such collaboration and the expected outcomes.

To continue the conversation about this Special Issue, in September 2019, at the XVII International Triple Helix Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, Henry Etzkowitz, as the Triple Helix Association President, encouraged the conference participants (from academy, industry and government) to think about two questions. How do we address the renewal of the Triple Helix concept and explore its relevance to local reality? Can knowledge-based innovation assume a leading role in driving forward economic and social development in circumstances in which it is just assuming a legitimated role? We answered “yes” to the latter wholeheartedly, while recognizing that there were many obstacles to be addressed to reach the promised land of flourishing innovation and entrepreneurship. At the same conference, Henry Etzkowitz and Karla Liboreiro advertised the special issue call for papers and the possibility of contemplating the latest results of Triple Helix studies of research groups worldwide.

After several rounds of submission, blind review and editing, we selected papers that combined theoretical, empirical and policy elements. The first paper, “Entrepreneurial university icon: Stanford and Silicon Valley as innovation and natural ecosystem”, explicates the cultural DNA and take-off trajectory of an entrepreneurial university and its emerging focus on sustainability. The second paper, “New hybrid organizations creating bridges through innovative educational solutions: The case of Hilversum Media Campus, the Netherlands”, presents the case of a hybrid organization involving Triple Helix cooperation to revamp the Dutch media industry and the Het Media Park as an economic center. The third paper, “The role of the university research laboratory in technology transfer to firms in Brazil: Two case studies in biotechnology” discusses the interaction between university research laboratories and industry for knowledge and technology transfer, with emphasis on the impact of the laboratory infrastructure, team qualification and local incentives on academic spin-off generation and industry partnership for technology transfer. The fourth paper, “Who you know affects what you know: Knowledge transfer in the university–private partnership – a social capital perspective”, deals with the contribution of university–private partnerships to the building of a knowledge-based economy. And, finally, the fifth paper, “Professional Master’s Program in Biotechnology and Innovation Management: The Triple Helix in movement and knowledge generation” analyses how a company, a university and government worked together in creating a professional Master’s degree program in a Brazilian university.

As these papers clearly show, the use of Triple Helix lenses leads us to a better understanding of the possible effective relationships involving the different industry, university and government contexts and cultures that exist in different nations and regions. The papers also discuss the role of the autonomy, heterogeneity, creativity and leadership of research groups and research laboratories in transferring knowledge and technology from university to industry, and the involvement of industry and government in defining research priorities.

We hope that readers will find these papers both interesting and stimulating. We hope too that the studies will act as springboards for new ideas and the creative development of cooperative innovation for social and economic development.