By Dr. Geci Karuri-Sebina
A version of this article was initially published in the CLES inPress Newsletter, May 2019, of the Cities, Law and Environmental Sustainability (CLES) Chair in the Faculty of Law at North-West University, South Africa.
In the 2016 State of Cities Report, the South African Cities Network made a point of emphasizing the importance of the “quadruple helix” (Q4). This was the proposition that:
“innovation (here, urban transformation) occurs in that cooperative space where government, the private sector, knowledge institutions and civil society role-players meet – the “quadruple helix”… enabling the necessary systemic change for improving the productivity, sustainability and inclusivity of cities” (SACN 2016, p.287; author’s emphasis).
South Africa’s New Urban Agenda Localisation Framework (DHS 2018) further affirmed that the Q4 model is a crucial framework for enabling the proposed “all-of-society approach” to urban development which is emphasized in our national urban policy, the Integrated Urban Development Framework (COGTA 2016).
An extension of the triple helix model of innovation initially theorized by Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, the Q4 model suggests the transactions between these sets of institutions are crucial for the production, transfer and application of knowledge that enables innovation and development. If we apply this model to the question of cities developing into sustainable places, then the proposition is that knowledge institutions have important interactions with each of the other helices (with government, industry and civil society) that should enable city innovation for development. It is important and useful to consider, then, what exactly constitutes those interactions, and how they can be focused towards achieving city sustainability.
I would begin by considering what the key city sustainability challenges are. SACN has traditionally proposed the five dimensions of city productivity, sustainability, inclusivity, good governance and long-range strategy as the foundations for successful cities. Although “sustainability” in the ecological sense is included as a dimension, a broader interpretation of sustainability would allow us to consider all five dimensions, and the interactions / balancing act between them, as resulting in the sustainable city: a city that is economically, socially, environmentally, physically and financially viable over the long term.
The immediate challenge that confronts us from this definition is its scope – coupled with the fact that cities are complex and dynamic. These don’t neatly fit disciplinary boundaries. And while we do have some theory and history to rely on (particularly in the schools of planning, urban design, geography, and so forth which may have had a long-standing focus on urban settlement), cities are continuously creating and facing new issues. Population growth and dynamics, exponential technological change, economic inequality and instability, and the realities of climate change and natural resource constraints have combined to form a very complex and overwhelming frame for thinking about city development. There are no easy theories, solutions or precedents for what cities – particularly in the global south – are faced with in pursuit of sustainability.
So where does the knowledge industry come in? In the South African context, we are mainly referring to our higher education institutions (universities), science councils, think tanks, and commercial R&D outfits. Most of these are neatly organised in formal disciplines and sectors, so that we have strong and deep competencies in studying many important things. However that knowledge tends not to translate or combine very easily to answer the questions that government, industry and civil society have when it comes to developing sustainable cities.
Herein lies our challenge. Our systems of education and research – of knowledge production – have to find new ways to respond to one of the greatest challenges our time. How to help us sustain (and thrive) in a world where two thirds of us will live in cities with populations of over one million in the next three decades. I would propose three important ways to activate the 3rd helice towards sustainable city development .
Enable integrative and trans-disciplinary scholarship: Firstly, enabling productive interactions between and beyond the siloed knowledge fields within the knowledge institutions themselves. This is basically about multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary work focused on city issues. Recent NRF South African Research Chairs (SARChI) awarded with a city focus are an example of encouraging this. This includes the Chair in Cities, Law and Environmental Sustainability (CLES) at NWU, and the four new urban SARChI chairs being established with the SACN on city finance, economies, inclusivity, and spatial transformation. These chairs aim to evolve new knowledge production capabilities that can study and respond to key city sustainability challenges and opportunities, and to develop a next generation of skilled, contextually-grounded practitioners.
Develop knowledge intermediaries: The second crucial and related interaction will be how the knowledge institutions can then transact or engage with the other helices – because universities, after all, don’t themselves develop cities. This is a continuing systemic challenge. In my opinion, both the supply and demand sides of the Q4 transaction are neither adequately developed or aligned, and sometimes it becomes a chicken-and-egg thing (i.e., you don’t have the knowledge I need, but I also don’t really know what knowledge I need or how I would recognise or use it even if it were there). For now, I think what we need to deliberately cultivate what are referred to as knowledge intermediaries in innovation system speak. Actors – whether individuals or institutions – that understand how to connect the research with the policy and practice spaces. These can help both to steer the research and lines of enquiry, as well as to build the relationships, and networks and platforms that enable knowledge institutions to effectively connect and interact with the other city helices.
Valorise diverse knowledge forms: Last, but not least, the knowledge institution needs to extend itself to valorise all kinds of knowledge, including among its own constituent elements and across the other helices. I am referring here by the tendency to “overwrite” the lived experiences and other knowledges of the city itself with book knowledge. These knowledges are carried by students, staff, faculty, communities, and even other non-human entities whose every-day realities and observations are sometimes a much closer reflection of the city than the scholarly views and formal theories that tend to be uniquely privileged by traditional knowledge institutions. Without disparaging the importance of scientific knowledge, I hold the view that singularly western, positivist approaches are inadequate for the knowledge challenge of the African city. We need to decolonise our knowledge processes, epistemological presumptions and methodological approaches if we want to connect effectively to the complex messiness of cities.
Dr Geci Karuri-Sebina is an Associate with South African Cities Network, a peer-based network of SA’s largest cities, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wits School of Governance. She is also an advisory fellow of the new the Cities, Law and Environmental Sustainability (CLES) Chair in the Faculty of Law at North-West University in South Africa, and a Board Member of AfricaLics. Geci has two decades’ experience and interests spanning a range of planning, innovation and foresight topics at the intersection between technology, city systems and society.