  Alongside the neo-institutional model of networked relations among
universities, industries, and governments, the Triple Helix can be provided
with a neo-evolutionary interpretation as three selection environments
operating upon one another: markets, organizations, and technological
opportunities. How are technological innovation systems different from national
ones? The three selection environments fulfill social functions: wealth
creation, organization control, and organized knowledge production. The main
carriers of this system-industry, government, and academia-provide the
variation both recursively and by interacting among them under the pressure of
competition. Empirical case studies enable us to understand how these
evolutionary mechanisms can be expected to operate in historical instance. The
model is needed for distinguishing, for example, between trajectories and
regimes.
