Book Description

This book is an authoritative confirmation of the critical role that knowledge plays in economic transformation. It is an indispensable roadmap for new research programmes and a guidepost for policy makers around the world. Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy School, US How to use and capitalize knowledge for the benefit of society has become even more urgent in the present financial and economic crisis. This book embraces the tensions inherent in the complex governance of research and innovation. It argues for strategies appropriate to the behaviour of complex adaptive systems in an evolutionary mode, thereby highlighting in a timely manner the necessary fit between organizational forms and the epistemological structure of knowledge in the overall context of a fertile investment climate. Helga Nowotny, European Research Council, WWTF Vienna Science and Technology Fund, Austria In the 21st century, economic and social development depends increasingly on knowledge rather than labour and capital. This book examines how knowledge is exploited through the development of innovations that yield economic and other benefits. The authors, who include leading figures from the field of innovation studies, look in particular at the growing links between universities, government and industry and the evolving triple helix relationship as they attempt to develop more effective means for capitalizing on knowledge. The book will be of considerable interest to policy-makers and to senior managers in industry and universities as well as to innovation scholars. Ben Martin, University of Sussex, UK In recent years, university industry government interactions have come to the forefront as a method of promoting economic growth in increasingly knowledge-based societies. This ground-breaking new volume evaluates the capacity of the triple helix model to represent the recent evolution of local and national systems of innovation. It analyses both the success of the triple helix as a descriptive and empirical model within internationally competitive technology regions as well as its potential as a prescriptive hypothesis for regional or national systems that wish to expand their innovation processes and industrial development. In addition, it examines the legal, economic, administrative, political and cognitive dimensions employed to configure and study, in practical terms, the series of phenomena contained in the triple helix category. This book will have widespread appeal amongst students and scholars of economics, sociology and business administration who specialise in entrepreneurship and innovation. Policy-makers involved in innovation, industrial development and education as well as private firms and institutional agencies will also find the volume of interest.