TRIPLE HELIX MODEL OF RELATIONS AMONG UNIVERSITY, INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

In this essay, I attend to the Triple Helix Model of relations among university, industry and government, broadly used in innovation studies. The model was proposed by Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leyersdorf and it has been very succesful as a heuristic for analysis of innovation process and as a normative guide for innovation policies. Moreover, its theoretical foundations ore suited with perspectives from evolutive and institutionalist theories of economic science, at the some time that it takes in account sociological variables usually unattended in economic theory. By other hand, the accumulative knowledge about diverse experiences of triple helix more than one decade ago has shown that the Triple Helix model is adequated as a impeller for innovations not only directed to market but also to various social problems. In spite of it, the model has originated critics pointing to its supporting functions and its weaknesses for adecuated descriptions and explanations of complex processes of innovation.