ABSTRACT
The organisation of the production of knowledge in advanced economic systems is facing a rapid shift away from the corporate model established in the second part of the twentieth century in the US towards a new distributed model (Etzkowitz, 1998; Zeitlin and Herrigel, 1999; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorf, 2000). The old model was based upon the pivotal role of the large corporation and was articulated around the key role of direct public subsidies to firms investing in research and development activities, strong public demand for goods and services incorporating high levels of knowledge-intensive products, and the complementary role of the academic system supported by public funding. In the new model, which is still emerging, the generation of knowledge is the result of enhanced social interactions. Transactions in the new markets for knowledge are complemented by technology sharing among firms within research consortia and technological platforms and the new venture capitalism, with the emergence of new surrogate markets for knowledgeintensive property rights that is the result of the merging of financial markets and the markets for knowledge (Antonelli and Teubal, 2007). Corporations are performing a declining role in the performance of research and development activities, while they remain active in funding the generation of new knowledge and its eventual purchase, often in the form of mergers and acquisitions of new innovative small firms and research contracts assigned to the academic system. Small firms play a much bigger role in the process (Chesbrough, 2003; Chesbrough et al., 2006). In this new model the academic system plays a new pivotal role. Etzkowitz (2002) proposes the successful metaphor of a triple helix where government, universities and firms are the three elements of a dynamic process of interaction and interdependence.
