Arrangement of Actors in the Triple Helix Innovation - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 130

The innovation—word derived from the Latin term innovatio—refers to an idea,
method or object that is created and little resembles previous patterns. Currently,
the word ''innovation'' is being considered as the invention that reached the
market. So that innovation is consolidated, it requires different actors, researchers
or scientists, inventors, and producers or businessmen.
This relationship of continuity was established at the advent of the Industrial
Revolution, involving scientific progress-invention-innovation, so that the inno-
vative process represented the end of a chain where technological practice was
linked with other social systems, causing resistance and remeaning the various
institutions (Thales 2006 ).
However, the current trend of formation of a technoscience significantly alters
this panorama. The connection between components of technological advancement
is organized as follows: invention-innovation-growth. The innovation becomes as
the Schumpeterian perspective—means and instrument for the effectuation of
economic growth. This implies in an instrumentalization of innovative practice
aimed solely to growth, making it contained and programmable (Thales 2006 ).
In this context, one of the competitiveness factors of companies and nations is
the time required to transform knowledge into products or services, that is, it takes
time to introduce them into the market before others do, i.e., before changes occur.
We could then say that the future of innovation lies in reducing the time of
knowledge generation and of its use by society (Aranha 2009 ). The linear his-
torical sequence shown above where innovation is born according to different
views—on academic research or in the company—tends to be modified so that it is
effectively born on the market.
The presence of civil society in innovation has a key role in the viability of
projects, which makes the management of the innovative process better consider
this group in the set of actors in innovation environments. The society then stands
in the center of the triple helix (Aranha 2005 ).
My view is that one should treat knowledge generation with a focus on solving
problems of society and on the welfare of people, and set the proper use of
knowledge generated by the society itself as a measuring parameter of this gen-
eration quality.
Furthermore, it is necessary to integrate the research laboratories of one region
in a steady stream of preparation of professionals and production of knowledge,
through the creation of competitive enterprises directed toward a particular
industry which can also provide local economic and social development.
The biggest efficiency of this process will occur when there is complete utili-
zation of knowledge by the society. A good example of this process was the
mobilization of Pasteur so that farms implanted minimum standards of hygiene—
when he developed the process of ''pasteurization.'' That is, he extended his
laboratory to the farms.
The incentive for knowledge generation, reducing the distance between the
generation, accumulation, and its use by society, will result in shortening the time
between the product or service creation and its use in a greater interaction
Industry-University, actors of this innovation system.