ABSTRACT
Introduction For innovation policies to become effective, smoothly functioning interfaces between innovation agents, assembling resources from diverse sectors of the economy, and sound strategy development and policy implementation are all required. Connecting independent innovation agents is a core feature of several theories of innovation, for example: systemic approaches to innovation (Freeman 1988; Lundvall 1992; Nelson 1993; Cooke 2002; Asheim et al. 2011); the triple-helix approach (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 1997); the learning region approach (Florida 1995, 2002; Morgan 1997), and the smart specialization approach (Foray et al. 2009). Further, innovation is usually characterized by increasing returns to knowledge implementation and diffusion, which typically takes on both public and private goods attributes. Forming partnerships for innovation and balancing public and private interests can play a significant part in combining innovation-relevant resources such as technical expertise, production capacities, regulatory power, user requirements, and finance which are spread out among multiple agents. An instrument for connecting agents in innovation policy is public-private partnerships (PPP), which are-loosely defined-a cooperative institutional arrangement between public and private sector agents (Hodge and Greve 2007).
