Across 45 days of site visits in Europe and Scandinavia, one feature stood out in every productive innovation ecosystem: industry, universities and government work together as a matter of habit. In Australia the three pillars run in parallel, rarely meeting and often wary of one another. This Insight asks whether that Triple Helix deficit helps explain why business R&D stays so low, why global research-intensive firms anchor their advanced work elsewhere, and what a remedy mi

Innovation precinct strategies routinely promise "chance encounters" and "spontaneous collaboration" as if bringing talented people together in well-designed spaces automatically produces productive connections. The evidence is weak. Many precincts deliver proximity without interaction. Tenants occupy adjacent floors for years without substantive engagement. Shared amenities become places where people check phones rather than start conversations. My latest Innovation Insight

Modern innovation ecosystems often fail, not from a lack of talent, but from a failure of collaboration. The key institutional pillars—university, industry, and government—operate in parallel rather than converging. They are driven by fundamentally different missions: eminence, profit, and probity. Genuine collaboration requires a clear-eyed understanding and respect for these core institutional drivers. We must build the bridge from simple transactions to deep, integrated p