Calls for papers

 

Global Business and Economics Review
Global Business and Economics Review

 

Special Issue on: "Triple Helix Dynamics for Innovation and Regional Growth"


Guest Editors:
Assist. Prof. Luis Farinha and Assoc. Prof. João J. Ferreira, University of Beira Interior, Portugal
Prof. Joao Ricardo Faria, University of Texas at El Paso, USA
Assit. Prof. Fernando A. F. Ferreira, University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal


The aim of this special issue is to promote theoretical and empirical research on triple helix (TH) dynamics in the context of regional innovation ecosystems.

Deeping analysis of TH dynamics in the fields of innovation and open innovation offer new and exciting contributions to science, offering new directions for regional innovation ecosystems, with a focus on the most peripheral or low-growth regions and their strategies of smart specialisation.

The innovation literature explores how diverse actors and institutions promote and spread innovation. Over the last decades, social scientists and policy makers have been paying more and more attention to regions as designated sites of innovation and competitiveness in the globalised economy (Asheim & Coenen, 2005). According to Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff (2000), the national organisation of the system of innovation has historically been important in determining competition. Jiao et al. (2016) argue which when the interaction between local producers and users of knowledge becomes increasingly active, R&D investment from firms, universities and research institutes has a stronger effect on the building of regional innovation systems. Active interactions in R&D networks of TH institutional actors can arguably improve innovative capabilities of countries (Lee & Kim, 2016).

In terms of the collaboration between institutional stakeholders in an economy, the TH metaphor of university–industry–government interactions (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000, 1995; Leydesdorff & Etzkowitz, 1996, 1998) quickly spread among academics and policy makers for their important contribution to national and regional innovation systems. The TH model is based on the assumption that relations between academia (universities and other public research organisations), industry and government (local, regional, national and supranational) are key to fostering innovation and regional competitiveness in the current context of the knowledge economy (Leydesdorff, 2000). The TH metaphor more or less invites proposals to extend the model to more than three helices (Björk, 2014; Carayannis et al. 2012; MacGregor et al. 2010; Peris-ortiz et al. 2016). In many remote, rural and less-favoured regions, there may not be a university or other knowledge-intensive institution present which makes a difference in terms of local development agendas. In the same sense, the business fabric also may be dispersed and bear fragile capacity for innovation. In this alignment, the public sector itself may not have this ability to improve innovation. In these particular cases, it is assumed that social groups and the community can also play an important role in the entrepreneurial context and in particular on the social entrepreneurship field (Kolehmainen et al., 2016; Lawton Smith & Bagchi-Sen, 2012). According to Leydesdorff (2012), the TH model can be extended algorithmically, for example, with local–global as a fourth dimension or, more generally, to an N-tuple of helices. Carayannis and Campbell (2009, 2010) have named the fourth helix as media-based and culture-based public and civil society. This is the understanding that additional perspectives must be added to comprehend open innovation in the unfolding twenty-first century (Park, 2014).

The model of "open innovations" (OI; Chesbrough 2003) can be compared with the TH model as it attempts to bring industrial innovation closer to public R & D (Leydesdorff & Ivanova, 2016). The TH and “multiple helices” case studies inform us about the best collaborative practices we can find in science and economics, which may result in science and innovation outputs, wealth and jobs creation, all based on the emergence of new collaborative business models and new market scales possibilities (Farinha et al. 2016; Lee & Kim, 2016; Leydesdorff et al. 2014; Peris-Ortiz et al. 2016; Reis et al. 2014).

Virkkala et al. (2017) present a connectivity model as a potential tool for smart specialisation strategies based on the TH dynamics. This model applied to the regional innovation systems gives us new clues about how the TH model can contribute to the entrepreneurial discovery process (EDP). The TH actors are expected to be at the forefront of the entrepreneurial discovery process and they should work according to the regions' smart specialization strategies. Leydesdorff et al. (2014) argue that it is now important to find a routine to measure the synergy in triple-helix and quadruple-helix relationships. The relations between the TH indicator as an indicator of synergy and the TH model that specifies the possibility of feedback by an overlap of communications are also discussed.

We seek to merge traditional and emerging perspectives in TH dynamics into regional innovation systems, not neglecting the case of peripheral and low-growth economies. Given the multifaceted nature of both triple helix metaphor and regional innovation systems, a particular feature of this special issue is that it seeks to examine the issues from different theoretical backgrounds, using different methodological tools to provide evidence of the interactions between the two concepts and to identify key topics, themes, and issues such as those related to innovation, open innovation and other collaborative dynamics conducive to the regional development.

We invite conceptual or empirical papers dealing with new theoretical and empirical perspectives in triple-helix and quadruple-helix dynamics and regional innovation systems in the context of learning regions.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the International Conference on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer (Regional HELIX’17), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

Subject Coverage
Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • How can innovation be enhanced through triple-helix or quadruple-helix interactions?
  • How to increase open innovation in learning regions through TH dynamics?
  • How can triple-helix dynamics contribute to the growth of peripheral regions?
  • What are the dynamics between the academia, industry, government and civil society that should be prioritised in order to make the territories smarter and competitive?
  • How can we measure and compare the robustness of triple-helix and quadruple-helix collaborative dynamics between regions?

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our Submitting articles page.


Important Dates

Manuscripts due by: 14 October, 2017