The Role of Local Communities:A Modification for the Knowledge-Based Regional Development Theory

By the turn of the 21 st century,the significance of knowledge to be the key factor in urban and regional development is well established. However,it has been recently and in only a few studies that attempts have been made to identify the specific mechanism and institutional relationships,through which knowledge-based development actually takes place.This paper builds upon the "Triple Helix Model" (Etzkowitz & Klofsten,2005) where university,business and government have been introduced as the key factors behind any knowledge-based development.It refers to a case study of knowledge-based community development in Australia’s Smart State Queensland-and examines the role of the "Triple Helix" in the interaction between local and regional level.It shows the central role of the community as an innovation base for the interaction among the key factors and suggests a promotion for a Quadruple Helix Model where community is as important as business,university and government in the new economy.The paper concludes that knowledge-based development will not promote unless all four factors-community,business,university,government-work together.