Assessing The Innovation Environment Of The Research Triangle Region

Resumo

The paper studies the Research Triangle Region (RTR), an economic development area in the state of North Carolina, USA. RTR comprises two major technological parks: the Research Triangle Park and the Centennial Campus of North Carolina State University. We applied Amaral’s Model for Innovation Environment Management (AMIEM) to the RTR parks and discuss regional development aspects under the prism of innovation management and the model’s adequacy as a tool to assess complex environments. The research method is descriptive and exploratory. The field research, conducted during 2016 and 2017, involved a literature review, collection of documents, and non-structured interviews. AMIEM is a quantitative-qualitative model with eleven factors to measure the maturity level of the Triple Helix linkages from academia (knowledge producers), the productive sector of goods and services (knowledge producers and users) and government (social and economic regulator). The RTR parks have a high level of maturity. Several successful and overlapping initiatives were found there in the past sixty years which explain the regional development. AMIEM’s application is complex due to the number of actors, documents, and initiatives. It is a useful tool to assess innovation environments and technology transfer mechanisms, which fits the Triple and Quintuple Helix approaches.