Investigating the Triple Helix Twins Governance through Coopetition: A CoPS Case Study

This study addresses the governance tensions between innovation and sustainability in innovation ecosystems, with a focus on coopetition strategies within the Triple Helix Twins model. Building on recent literature on coopetition, sustainable development-oriented innovation ecosystems, and knowledge spillovers, it investigates how industry, university, government, and the public strategically align their objectives, resources, and constraints through coopetitive dynamics. Adopting an abductive qualitative design, this paper relies on the French aerospace and energy industries. Using a systematic combining protocol, it analyses 22 semi-structured interviews and secondary data. Findings reveal that coopetition fosters dynamic alignment among actors through continuous control feedback loops and knowledge spillover orchestration. Yet, public inclusion remains limited due to poor involvement in the traditional Triple Helix, leading to more extreme ideas in governance. This research conceptualizes coopetition as a cross-actors multi-level tool balancing innovation and sustainability, calling for more inclusive processes in high-technological innovation ecosystems.