Triple Helix: To Build a Strong Baltic Space Capacity

Once upon a time in the USSR Occupation, Baltic scientific research was performed under the governance of the Estonian / Latvian / Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. Research topics were chosen by a political mandate and large numbers of people from the USSR were politically pushed to the "border regions", i.e. Baltic States, as a political strategy to justify the Soviet Occupation. The research institutes were flush with attention to make stronger borders.

For example, In 1990, before Latvian Independence, there were 33 specialized Latvian research institutes. These 33 specialized Latvian research institutes worked in relative isolation from Latvia's higher educational institutes. These 33 specialized Latvian research institutes worked in relative isolation from Latvia's Industry.

How can the youth understand science if the scientific education is not close to the scientific research?

How can Industry, where scientific principles are deeply embedded, be effective if the business is not close the scientific research?

In the formation of a western knowledge-based economy, true competitiveness largely depends on the efficient linking of a "Triple Helix" (1):

Industry (Business)
Education (Universities)
Research

Today, in 2018 in the Baltics that linking is weak (strongest: Estonia, weaker further south). Such a weak linkage directly affects its space capacity.

If such a linkage is needed for Baltic space work and the linkage is weak, what is needed to further the development?

Our Empirically-Based Strategy for Building a Country's (Democratic) Space Capacity

1) Accept the Triple Helix as Vitally Important.
2) Recognize the existing capacities for space work:
-facilities
-experts (usually senior Soviet-era)
3) Educate what is the meaning of intellectual property and how it is tied to, and builds, trust and reputation.

4) Link the skillsets to the needs of the international community.
5) Train the young on the facilities and on the skill-sets of the senior experts.
6) Educate the lesser-advanced space-faring former-Soviet-Occupied nation (Latvia, say) with lessons from the more -advanced space-faring former-Occupied Soviet nation (Estonia, say).
7) Build strong projects which integrate several of the space facilities with triple helix international partners.

8) Train the staff for what Review Panels look for and how to tell strong stories (i.e. proposal-writing).
9) Find funding for a team of expert grant proposal writers or for a team of crowd-sourcing projects.
10) Implement funded strong projects.

Reference
(1) Anda Adamsone-Fiskovica, 2002, National System of Innovation, Triple Helix and Intermediary Innovation Support Organisations in a Post-socialist Country: the Case of Latvia,
Masters Thesis, Linköping University

2016 ESOF Presentation:

What do You Need to Transition a Former Soviet

Society to a Democratic Space-Faring Nation ?