Assessing the triple helix model for research and development in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

The triple helix model refers to when universities, industry, and government work together to foster economic and social development (Leydesdorff, 2012; Galvao et al., 2019). The concept was first theorised in the 1990s by Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leidesdorff to underscore the relationship between universities, governments, and industry using universities' research innovations to propel economic development (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000). Expanding on the triple helix model, Elias Carayannis, and David Campbell in 2009 added a fourth dimension by highlighting the role of the media and civil society within the framework (Carayannis and Campbell, 2009). Increasingly, the accurate dissemination of scientific innovations derived from university-industry-government collaboration has given the model a pre-eminent place in institutional empyrean (Etzkowitz, 2003).