Environmental Economics in Knowledge Economy and Knowledge Democracy: Innovation and Higher Education Governance and Policies for Environmental Guiding

Dear Colleagues, 

The call focuses on the Quadruple and Quintuple Helix innovation systems are rooted in democracy and ecology. There are three key propositions:

1. Progress in knowledge and innovation is heavily dependent on democracy or knowledge democracy. Democracy plays a crucial role in advancing knowledge and innovation.
2. Ecology and environmental protection are not only essential for humanity but also serve as catalysts for further knowledge and innovation. This can lead to a mutually beneficial relationship between ecology and innovation.
3. Sustainability and sustainable development of the knowledge democracy and knowledge economy are representing key considerations.

For an innovation system to be classified as a Quadruple/Quintuple Helix system, the political regime supporting these helixes must be fundamentally democratic, not just in appearance. Additionally, there is a suggestion that the next phase in the evolution of innovation systems might require a "Democracy of Climate", where democracies promote a social, cultural, economic, and political environment, supportive of democracy, and, furthermore, prioritizing ecology as a key driver for responsible innovation. Innovation and higher education governance and policies for environmental management are to be designed in ways so to mutually reference and co-create governance in knowledge democracy and knowledge economy. These innovation and higher education governance and policy designs should be furthermore put in reference to sustainability and sustainable development, thus indicating and defining frames of assessment and evaluation.

This Special Issue sets an opportunity for authors to submit manuscripts related (but not limited) to the following topics:

• To which extent is a knowledge democracy necessary for promoting knowledge economy in cross-connection with sustainable development;
• The co-evolution of knowledge democracy and knowledge economy for the development of an environmental economy;
• Industry 4.0 and 5.0;
• Democracy 4.0 and 5.0;
• What are possible forms of “win-win” constellations ecological sensitivity and drivers of innovation;
• Interdisciplinary research alliances and transdisciplinary communities of application and practice;
• Thinking and acting “beyond the box”;
• The theory of Quadruple and Quintuple Helix innovation systems as a conceptual basis;
• Emerging Unified Theory of Helix Architectures (EUTOHA);
• Academic firms and entrepreneurial universities;
• Third Mission activites at higher education institutions;
• Fourth Mission activities;
• Education for democracy for a sustainable development;
• Governance in higher education: New Public Management, Network Governance and Epistemic Governance;
• Interdisciplinary governance of higher education for a comprehensive understanding of environmental topics and challenges;
• Transdisciplinary governance of higher education for environmental management addplication;
• Governance of higher education for sustainable development (including ecological development);
• Innovative governance for sustainable development (including ecological development);
• Governance and policies for environmental management;
• The future of governance;
• Policy paradigms of the future;
• Principles for designing transdisciplinary research;
• IT and AI (Artificial Intelligence) for the governance of the future;
• Transdisciplinary Research on Global Challenges and Transformation.

Dr. David F. J. Campbell
Prof. Dr. Elias Carayannis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• academic firm
• democracy
• democracy of climate
• ecology
• environment
• environmental economics
• environmental management
• epistemic governance
• governance
• higher education
• higher education governance
• innovation
• knowledge democracy
• knowledge economy
• knowledge society
• policy
• strategy
• quadruple and quintuple helix innovation systems
• research
• sustainability
• sustainable development