Competing Through Collaboration: How Prague and Brno Can Learn from Eindhoven’s Success

Eindhoven sits atop Europe in patents per square kilometer. 

How?

The city reacted to the decline of the global powerhouse Philips by innovating across government, university and business to create a much more resilient network of large and small firms all pursuing edge-of-the- envelope innovation in multiple and intersecting fields. 

That is the triple helix. One strand is government. One strand is university. One strand in business. When they wrap around each other, reacting to developments in the other two, provoking through their own actions a reaction from the other, a climate of open innovation is created. Ideas pass and are transformed by different types of expertise and experience. The next new idea spawns several next new sets of ideas. The challenge is not to retain knowledge behind walls of concrete and cybersecurity, but to use the knowledge you have to increase the knowledge you will have by multiples instead of fractions. 

Neither Prague or Brno can replicate Eindhoven, because we do not have a Philips. But we can generate the triple helix to create our own democracy of commercialized ideas and challenge Eindhoven for to be the champions in Europe of patents per kilometer. 

Thanks to Bert Hesselink of CTP and Cees Admiraal of High Tech Campus Eindhoven for organizing the trip, to the Eindhoven University of Technology for explaining their challenge system of education, and to Mark van Lieshout and Renée Versteegde-Derks of Brainport Industries for explaining how companies generate higher value through cooperation. Lots to think about, and even more to do.