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Triple helix dynamics of South Korea’s innovation system: a network analysis of inter-regional technological collaborations

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Abstract

This study intends to unveil the current innovation landscape of South Korea in an attempt to examine the underlying patterns of inter-regional technology collaboration occurring at the triple helix level. Social network analysis techniques are used to quantify the structure of the four types of inter-provincial co-inventorship network between university, industry, and government (UIG). The findings confirm the declining centrality of Seoul as the primary research center with the emergence of new regional players such as Gyeonggi and Daejeon. However, they also reveal that these three main innovative regions have become strongly linked in recent years and constitute the core of the inter-regional collaboration networks. The poor linkage between the research core and the periphery, in turn, raises some concerns regarding the unfair geographical concentration of innovation resources and technology activities, hindering the synergy in the national and regional innovation systems. To create a dynamic innovative milieu for bolstering Korea’s national innovation system, therefore, interactive learning between the core and the periphery, as well as between the various UIG actors, must be further facilitated.

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Acknowledgments

The first author acknowledges that this work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2015S1A5B5A01015224). The corresponding author also acknowledges that this work was supported by the 2016 Yeungnam University Research Grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Soongsil University, 369 Sangdo-Ro, Dongjak-Gu, Seoul, 06978, South Korea

    Jungwon Yoon

  2. Department of Media & Communication, Interdisciplinary Programs of East Asian Cultural Studies and Digital Convergence Business, Yeungnam University, 214-1 Dae-dong, Gyeongsan-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do, 712-749, South Korea

    Han Woo Park

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  1. Jungwon Yoon
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Correspondence to Han Woo Park.

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Yoon, J., Park, H.W. Triple helix dynamics of South Korea’s innovation system: a network analysis of inter-regional technological collaborations. Qual Quant 51, 989–1007 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-016-0346-x

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