Women Resource Centres—A Creative Knowledge Environment of Quadruple Helix

Abstract

Creative behaviour has been claimed to be a vital ingredient for the inventions and innovations that are indispensable for the dawning knowledge society. The causality between creativity, knowledge development and innovation ascribes creative knowledge environments an important role as work settings in which people produce new knowledge. The Creative Knowledge Environment approach reaches beyond the Triple Helix model-promoted in innovation policy and research-in its potential to acknowledge creative environments outside academia, industry and government. This is a relevant contribution since the public funding of Triple Helix constellations has been criticised for paradoxically consolidating old structures rather than opening up for creative change. In this article, the model of Women Resource Centres (WRCs)-developed in Sweden and internationalized throughout Europe-serves as an example of how creativity in the organization of joint action networks can make new knowledge and innovation prosper. These centres were initiated in order to promote gender equality in regional development policy, enhancing women's realization of business ideas and innovations. The model of Women Resource Centres illustrates the need for further development of predominant models for promoting innovation. Suggested concepts such as Creative Knowledge Environments and Quadruple Helix have the potential to increase the diversity of actors and areas being acknowledged as important in the expanding knowledge economy, by including the civil society and creative industries. However, the example of WRCs exposes an aspect of creativity and J Knowl Econ (2012) 3:36-52 innovation that is not properly addressed in the suggested models, namely the aspect of gender.

A Processual Approach for the Quadruple Helix Model: the Case of a Regional Project in Uppsala

“…Further, as Lindberg et al (2012) argue, it is important to include the fourth helix to facilitate a prosperous creative knowledge environment. If the different actors had been provided with more information about the renewable technology and its benefits, a more positive environment for experimenting and learning could have resulted (Aranguren and Larrea 2011).…”

Entrepreneurship and Gender Equality in Academia – a Complex Combination in Practice

“…Lindberg et al (2011) criticize VINNOVA's and similar funding agencies' large joint-action networks designed to enhance innovation: '[They are] paradoxically consolidating old structures rather than opening up for creative change. A narrow range of actors and areas has been prioritized, ignoring the contribution from other sectors and alternative constellations to the growth of the knowledge economy ' (p. 37).…”

“…Moreover, the ongoing transformation of academia towards entrepreneurship and innovation changes the settings and arenas for gender equality interventions. Gender analyses of entrepreneurship and innovation in academia indicate that gender equality can be an elusive goal here (Dahlerup, 2010;Fältholm et al, 2010;Lindberg et al, 2011;Rosa & Dawson 2006;Ylijoki, 2003). Most academic entrepreneurs at Swedish universities are men.…”

Design for Gender Equality: The History of Co-Housing Ideas and Realities

“…The gender perspective implied an effort to integrate both the social and ecological domains in planning. Thus planning was proposed to be a locally anchored dialogue between the residents, officials and various specialists in a way that today is called the 'quadruple helix-mode' (Lindberg et al, 2011). It affected not only the process of planning but also the content of the plans and outcomes, which became more congruent with the needs of users than before.…”