Triple helix and regional development: a perspective from Oxfordshire in the UK

This paper illustrates that distinctive patterns of regional development can be understood as resulting from the relative dominance of the three components in the triple helix model at any one time. This approach can be used to understand why high growth sectors, such as biotechnology, are concentrated at particular locations. Using the example of the biotechnology sector in Oxfordshire (UK), we examine how differences in formal (e.g. institutional arrangements) and informal networks are influenced by broader geographical, political, economic and social environments. These differences produce distinctive regional forms of the triple helix model. Oxfordshire is a national centre of the sector, having the key ingredients of a concentration of universities and government laboratories, heavily supported by government, and a growing number of biotech firms. The distinctive features of the Oxfordshire variant are that the role of Oxford University, a world centre for biomedical research, is secondary at the regional level rather than being dominant as might be expected and that the availability of skills, underplayed in traditional presentations of the model, is far more significant.