This paper develops a five-dimensional model and diagnostic framework explaining how local governments can articulate science, technology and innovation ecosystems to foster innovation-driven entrepreneurship in territorialised contexts. The model is intended to guide diagnostic assessment and evidence-based policy design rather than to serve as a predictive or empirically validated causal framework.
The research employs a theory synthesis approach integrating institutional entrepreneurship theory, the Neo-Triple Helix model and policy layering perspectives. Two illustrative cases (Medellín and Singapore) exemplify mechanisms and implementation choices rather than test the model.
The model encompasses institutional governance, relational infrastructure, technological capabilities, financing mechanisms and sustainability orientation. Local governments can function as institutional entrepreneurs orchestrating ecosystem emergence through autonomous agencies, regulatory experimentation and network facilitation.
The framework is grounded in literature reflecting specific institutional assumptions (e.g. liberal-democratic governance and market-based coordination), potentially limiting transferability to different administrative traditions; future research should examine adaptations across diverse governance settings.
The model provides public managers with diagnostic tools for identifying gaps between local conditions and ideal-type enablers, informing evidence-based policy design. For low-capacity municipalities, operationalisation should proceed through inter-municipal cooperation and multi-level governance arrangements enabling access to instruments rarely feasible at the single-municipality scale.
This research extends institutional entrepreneurship theory to the municipal scale, synthesises helix models through the Neo-Triple Helix framework and operationalises transformative innovation policy principles for local government application.
