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The Triple Helix concept of innovation systems holds that consensus space among industry, government and university is required to bring together their competences to achieve enhanced economic and social development on a systemic scale. In line with this argument, this article analyses empirically how the concept of circular economy is conceived in the institutional spheres of &ldquo, industry&rdquo, &ldquo, government&rdquo, and &ldquo, university&rdquo, Innovation systems are constantly being reconstructed through knowledge production and communication, which is reflected in how concepts develop in the different spheres. By applying natural language processing tools to key contributions from each of the three spheres (the &ldquo, Triple Helix&rdquo, ), it is shown that, although institutional backgrounds do contribute to differing conceptualizations of circular economy, there is a substantial but limited conceptual consensus space, which, according to the Triple Helix, should open new opportunities for innovations. The consensus space shared across the three spheres focuses on materials and products and sees circular economy as a way to create new resources, businesses and products from waste. The industry sphere highlights business opportunities on global scale, which are also evident in the government sphere. The government sphere connects circular economy to waste-related innovation policies targeted at industrial renewal, economic growth, investments and jobs. The university sphere, in turn, focuses on production and environmental issues, waste and knowledge, and is rather distinct from the two other spheres. The importance of the differing conceptions of circular economy is based on the logic of Triple Helix systems. Accordingly, sufficient consensus between the Triple Helix spheres can advance the application of the concept of circular economy beyond the individual spheres to achieve systemic changes.

This paper offers a systematic reflection on the Gibbons-Nowotny notion of 'Mode 2 knowledge production'. We review its reception in scientific literature and compare it with seven alternative diagnoses of changing science systems. The 'Mode 2' diagnosis identifies a number of important trends that require further empirical efforts, but it suffers from severe conceptual problems. It is time to untie its five major constitutive claims and investigate each separately. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Raising collective agency is key to successful place-based development approaches. Existing policy arrangements have, however, been criticised, suggesting a need to effectuate more collaborative modes of governance. This paper shall contribute to a better understanding of how public support can best be arranged to raise collective agency for a more collaborative mode of governance in rural areas. The paper elaborates on findings of empirical investigations conducted within the EU FP7 project DERREG. It will be shown that differences in effectuating more collaborative modes of governance can partly be ascribed to different political dynamics, economic and demographic situations as well as the presence of a shared sense of place. To raise collective agency effectively requires a joint reconsideration and restructuring of the division of roles and tasks, including those of public administration. This can be supported by facilitating joint reflexivity among development actors and giving room for collaborative leadership and operational flexibility within policy arrangements.

Increasing entrepreneurial activity within academia has raised concerns that the number of publications added to the scientific commons might be reduced or that academic research would be directed exclusively towards the application-oriented needs of industry. In the case of academic inventions, the potential conflict between public- and private-oriented considerations seems most salient. In this contribution, we examine whether the publication behavior of academic inventors (at K.U. Leuven) differs from their colleagues (non-inventors) working within similar fields of research. Our analysis reveals that inventors publish significantly more. Moreover, no empirical evidence was found for the skewing problem. These findings not only suggest the co-existence of both activities; they may actually reinforce each other. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. knowledge interactions; university-industry relations; academic inventors; industry-government relations; social-contract; triple-helix; science; entrepreneurial; universities; knowledge; economics; dynamics; systems