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In the mid-1990s, the concept of regional innovation ecosystems was still in its infancy.

When policymakers talked about knowledge transfer and technology commercialisation, the prevailing model was a linear one namely that universities would produce research, government would fund infrastructure, and industry would, eventually, find ways to use it. The idea that these three sectors should work in close collaboration by designing solutions together was far from mainstream thinking.

That began to change with the pioneering work of inspiring scholars such as Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff, who introduced the triple helix model of innovation. Their insight was simple but powerful namely that innovation thrives when universities, businesses, and government actively co-create solutions rather than working in isolation.

This collaborative framework challenged the notion of separate roles by instead proposing an overlapping and intertwined approach – like a helix - that could accelerate regional economic development.

While these ideas were being developed in theory, real-world experiments began to emerge. In the late 1990s, I had the privilege of working with Professor Magnus Klofsten in Sweden on the Linköping Technopole, a groundbreaking initiative that brought together academia, civic authorities, and emerging tech businesses to create a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem.

At Linköping, we saw how the university provided research excellence and talent, government invested in enabling infrastructure, and businesses translated knowledge into market-ready innovations. More crucially, we learned that businesses were the driving force behind success, and the most impactful initiatives were those where entrepreneurs and growing companies, rather than government and universities, set the agenda by identifying opportunities, shaping the direction of technology development, and leading commercialisation efforts.

Since those early days, the triple helix framework has become a foundation for modern innovation policy around the world and from science parks to regional innovation boards, from incubators to technology clusters, the principles of cross-sector collaboration have reshaped how economies develop knowledge-based industries.

Over the past decade, this thinking has been further advanced by the work of Brad Feld on start-up communities. Feld’s model emphasises that thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems are built over the long term, led by entrepreneurs themselves, and supported by networks of mentors, investors, universities, and civic leaders.