Triple Helix collaboration : a solution for startups in Lebanon?.

Abstract

Lebanon is not considered an entrepreneurship-friendly environment. Many challenges exist that hinder startups from turning their ideas into businesses. The origin of all the challenges is deeply rooted in the Lebanese government’s weak public institutions. Few actions have been taken by separate sectors to support entrepreneurship, but nothing is serious and official. In 2013, the Lebanese Central Bank decided to take the initiative by issuing Circular 331 as the first official action taken in the country toward entrepreneurship. The Circular represented the main funding mechanism for startups, mainly in the technology sector. However, money is almost done, and a new strategy should be adopted to enhance the entrepreneurship ecosystem. In order to understand the current Lebanese ecosystem, a Triple Helix approach is adopted. The core idea of the concept is to foster collaboration among government, academia, and the industry to create a sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem. In the Triple Helix model, such collaboration is referred to as the consensus space, where government, academia, and the industry interact interdependently. Their interaction is based on specific roles performed by each actor as well as roles borrowed from each other aiming at filling a gap in the ecosystem. Applying this into the Lebanese context, this thesis aims at studying the need for consensus space formation to help startups develop in such weak public institutions.