Innovation today: the Triple Helix and research diversity

Triple Helix

Volumn 1, Issue 1, 2014, Pages

  Rieu, Alain Marc ^a  

^a University Lyon 3   (France)

Author keywords

Diversity; Fourth helix; France; Germany; Governance; Innovation territories; Institutions; Japan; Research policy; Triple Helix

Indexed keywords

EID: 84952912170     PISSN: None     EISSN: 21971927     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1186/s40604-014-0008-8     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. A recent Accenture report by Harris and Junglas (2013), ‘Decoding the contradictory culture of Silicon Valley’, compared its ecosystem to Tasmania or Madagascar in order to reinforce its exceptionality.
2. Local replica have been experimented, the best known is Sophia Antipolis, close to Nice in Southern France. France has many different high-tech valleys, corridors, and one plateau, the Plateau de Saclay, often called in France the ‘European Silicon Valley.’ Silicon Valley is a compulsory pilgrimage for French high officials.
3. See Examens de l'OCDE des politiques d'innovation: France, summary in English (OECD 2014). This report is based on the National System of Innovation theory, not on the Triple Helix theory. It generally confirms my analysis, but does not provide an effective explanation of French shortcomings because it does not take into account the impact of ‘power networks.’ The report is concerned with governance, not with governmentality (in a sense derived from the work of Michel Foucault), which introduces a perspective taking into account power networks and their strategies. But this report provides a detailed description of French research, education, and innovation institutions.
4. For instance at the 1998 Triple Helix Congress in New York. Most authors of the above OECD report are from the Ecole des mines.
5. All the various institutions compositing the state and expressing its various functions and range of interests in a given society.
6. The Ecole Normale Supérieure, Ecole polytechnique, Ecole centrale, etc.
7. « et aux énergies renouvelables» (and renewable energies) was added in due time.
8. Michel Callon's Center for the Sociology of Innovation at the Ecole des mines in Paris had for goal to bring light in this black box.
9. This includes the OECD (2014) report Examens de l'OCDE des politiques d'innovation: France. The French state apparatus has even created its own ‘science’ and ‘technology’. The Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA) is a professional school dedicated to teach the grounds, the organization, the methods, and the values of the French state apparatus and to train students in its management.
10. Election to national academies, consultancy jobs for government and international institutions, prestigious nominations, etc.
11. See for instance the composition in this Spring 2014 of the Research Strategic Council (Conseil stratégique de la recherche): http://www.oecd.org/france/2014.07%20Better_Policies_Series_France.pdf. Each individual member is of course highly respectable but, because of its composition, the conclusions of such a council are necessarily so broad and general that the high administration controls in the end the policy.
12. Exemplified by Airbus, the SNCF and its TGV, the nuclear and other utilities companies, like EDF, Vinci (‘world leading concession and construction group’), etc.
13. See Hecht (2004). Nuclear plants produce around 75% of electricity in France and around 23% in Japan before Fukushima.
14. See the Nora-Minc Report (1978), commissioned by President Giscard d’Estaing (1974 to 1981).
15. In search of economic growth and political support, President François Holland decided on 10 January 2013 to allocate 150 million Euros for « disruptive innovation» (innovations de rupture). On 8 April 2013, the government created a commission on innovation under the direction of Anne Lauvergeon, former student at the Ecole des mines and former president of Areva, now board member of various big firms. In the report published on 18 October 2013 (http://www.direccte.gouv.fr/consultez-le-rapport-lauvergeon.html), the two pages on innovation are pure rhetoric and the seven development targets for the French economy are those found in all other industrial nations. See also two reports under the direction of Louis Beffa: with minor adaptations, they simply justify the existing situation.
16. See Journal official (2010).
17. I follow various studies by Hilpert (2003, 2006, 2014).
18. http://www.bmwi.de/EN/Topics/Technology/hightech-strategy.html.
19. The Région Rhône-Alpes may be the most interesting case in France. Grenoble is an effective successful case of Triple Helix arrangement. See Vincent Mangematin's workshop with Henry Etzkowitz, The micro-foundations of Triple Helix, Grenoble Business School, 26 to 27 May 2014.
20. What is at stake is the historical trajectory of the French state, which constructed itself in order to counterbalance these centrifugal forces.
21. Concerning the rivalry between England and France and its consequences, see Hahn (1971).
22. The theory of reverse innovation (Huet 2014) shares the same concern with diversity. Helix arrangements are the acting core of a national system of innovation and of local 'clusters' (Forest and Hamdouch 2009). Because they are connective and flexible, they convey diversity.
23. For instance, the causes and consequences of the Fukushima catastrophe are so wide and deep, of such a high level of complexity, that it is clear that a reformed political function is necessary to manage the situation. See Rieu (2012b, 2013)
24. For a more precise analysis, see Rieu (2012a) ‘Beyond neoliberalism: research policies and society. The case of Japan’.
25. See NISTEP website: www.nistep.go.jp/.
26. The most accurate diagnosis and detailed analysis is a study by Watanabe (2009).
27. I have drawn from articles, discussions, and presentations by Arimoto Tateo, director of the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX), Japan Science and Technology Agency, and by Mrs. Harayama Yuko, Tohoku University, former OECD vice-director for science and technology and advisor to Prime ministers Koizumi and Abe. See Arimoto (2006).
28. See the RISTEX website: http://www.ristex.jp/EN/.
29. Concerning the work of Kobayashi Tadashi, see Michel Callon in Callon et al. (2001, 2009).
30. Director, Center for Deliberative democracy, Keio University, Tokyo.
31. See CDD (2012) for links with various newspapers articles.
32. Arimoto T (2006) Innovation policy for Japan in a new era. In: Whittaker H, Cole R (eds) Recovering from Success: Innovation and Technology Management in Japan. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 237–254
33. Callon, Lascoumes, Barthes (2001, 2009) Agir Dans un Monde Incertain. Essai sur la Démocratie Technique. Prologue, Paris, Seuil, English translation, Acting in an uncertain world. An essay on technical democracy, MIT press
34. CDD (2012) Stanford University, Center for Deliberative Democracy, Deliberative polling. Deliberation on energy policy, Japan, http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/japan/#results
35. th trimester 2009., http://rei.revues.org/4064
36. Godin B (2008) “Innovation: the history of a category”, Project on the intellectual history of innovation, working paper n° 1
37. Hahn R (1971) The anatomy of a scientific institution. The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666–1803. University of California Press, Berkeley
38. Harris J, Junglas I (2013) Decoding the contradictory culture of Silicon Valley, Research report, Institute for high performance, Accenture, June
39. Hecht G (2004) Le Rayonnement de la France - Energie Nucléaire et Identité Nationale Après la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. La Découverte, Paris
40. Hilpert U (ed) (2003) Regionalisation of globalised innovation: locations for advanced industrial development and disparities in participation. Routledge, London, p 272
41. Hilpert U (2006) Knowledge in the region: development based on tradition, culture and change”. Eur Plan Stud 14(5):581–599
42. Hilpert U (2014) A Federal System Matches a Heterogeneous Situation. The Role of Diversities of Innovation for Technology Policy in Germany”., in Rieu (2014)
43. Huet J-M (2014) L’innovation inverse. Vers de nouveaux rapports Nord-Sud, Futuribles n° 401, juillet-août 2014, 89–97
44. Kobayashi T (2012) The reality of Japan’s National Debate: citizen participation and the nuclear energy issue. Asteion (Hankyu-Communications) n° 77:192–208
45. Latour B (2005) Reassembling the social: an introduction to Actor-Network theory. Oxford, University Press, Oxford
46. Leydesdorff L, Etzkowitz H (2003) Can the public be considered as a fourth helix in university-industry-government relations? Science and Public Policy n° 30(1):55–61
47. NISTEP (2005) National Institute for Science and Technology Policy, Report n° 99, Comprehensive Analysis of Science and Technology Benchmarking and Foresight. Tokyo
48. Nora-Minc Report (1978) L’informatisation de la Société. Le seuil, collection Points, is typical of this situation, Paris
49. OECD (2014) France: redresser la compétitivité, Paris
50. Porter M (2011) Competitive advantage of nations: creating and sustaining superior performance. Simon and Schuster, New York, p 896
51. Rieu A-M (2008) Géostratégie de la recherche et de l’innovation. CNRS, Hermès, Editions n° 50 p. 67–73 http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00360140/fr/
52. Rieu A-M (2012a) Beyond neo-liberalism: research policies and society. The case of Japan”. Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 29(2):58–78, http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00699182
53. Rieu A-M (2012b) Penser après Fukushima (1). Technologie souveraine et contrôle démocratique”. revue Ebisu n° 47(special issue):69–78, http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00701743. (Japanese translation, Akashi Shoten 2013)
54. Rieu A-M (2013) “Thinking after Fukushima (2). Epistemic shift in human and social science”, Heidelberg, Springer. Asia Eur J 11(1):65–78, doi:10.1007/s10308-013-0344-8
55. Sterling A (2007) A general framework for analyzing diversity in science, technology and society. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 4(15):707–719. (http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/26984/)
56. Watanabe C (2009) Managing innovation in Japan. The role institutions play in helping or hindering how companies develop technology. Springer Verlag, Berlin
57. Journal official (2010), http://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/cid56384/qui-oriente-et-definit-la-politique-derecherche.html. 26 November