Triple, Quadruple and N-Tuple Helices: The RIS3 and EDP of a Higher-Order Policy Model

Abstract

In the past decade there have been a series of articles on the status of Triple, Quadruple and N-Tuple Helices. In responding to the most recent of these from Leydesdorff and Lawson Smith (2022), this article examines the respective status of the Triple and Quadruple Helix as the scientific basis of the Research and Innovation Strategies related to Smart Specialisation (RIS3) and as the foundation of the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP). In conducting this examination, the article draws attention to the strengths of the Triple Helix Model, the communication overlay, fourth selection environment and associated ecology of the meta-stabilisation it posits not as the Quadruple Helix, but N-Tuple helices of a higher-order policy model. That policy model which stands high in terms of the status it commands as a regime governing the transition to a next-order system. To a next-order system whose governing regime commands this heightened status as the model policy for nation-states to adopt in sustaining the economic growth of regions.