The Midi-Pyrénées Higher Education and Regional Innovation Systems

This article presents the regional innovation system of Midi Pyrénées, emphasising the part played by the academic world. It shows that public/industry research cooperations could be developed following two methods : the first one aims to the shared research between public and industrial laboratories ; the other one consists in (translation) transfer activities between the two worlds. The triple helix model [Leydesdorf L. & Etzkowitz H.,1998 ] will be used as conceptual framework to analyze the interaction between three spheres, industry, research, governance. But if Leydesdorff has stessed the part played by communication, we show that path dependency and learning are very important for the creation of institutions and cooperation procedures for translation aims as well for integration ones. On the other hand, we'll explain how institutional changes can modify organizations in the fields of cooperation between public research and industry. The institutions act on processes either by enforcement, or by incentives and make co-operations possible through institutional arrangements. The intersection between the three spheres is the realization locus of the institutional matrix proposed by North [North D. C., 1991]. Eventually we show that governance is a determining clue for cooperation between public research and industry. We illustrate our argument with French examples chosen within the Midi-Pyrénées Regional System of Innovation (with some references to Rhône-Alpes).