“While a Storm is Raging on the Open Sea”: Regional Development in a Knowledge-based Economy

The Triple Helix of university–industry–government (UIG) relations is elaborated into a systemic model that accounts for interactions among three dimensions. By distinguishing between the respective micro-operations, this model enables us to recombine the “Mode 2” thesis of a new production of scientific knowledge and the study of systems of innovation with the neo-classical perspective on the dynamics of the market. The mutual information in three dimensions provides us with an indicator for the self-organization of the resulting network systems. The probabilistic entropy in this mutual information can be negative in knowledge-based configurations. The knowledge base of an economy can be considered as a second-order interaction effect among interactions at interfaces between institutions and functions in different spheres. Proximity enhances the chances for couplings and, therefore, the formation of technological trajectories. The next-order regime of the knowledge base, however, can be expected to remain pending as selection pressure.