Josep Miquel Piqué Huerta defended his Ph.D. dissertation: Understanding the Urban Development and the Evolution of the Ecosystems of Innovation

His work aims to contribute to the understanding of the revitalization projects of metropolitan areas and the evolution of ecosystems of innovation. It has been based on the conceptual frameworks of the Triple Helix model, the Knowledge-Based Urban Development paradigm, the theory of the Clusters of Innovation and the Lifecycle Model of a New Venture. Moreover, complementary insights from the Quadruple and Quintuple Helix Models have been proved to be useful to improve the understanding of these projects.

Seeing the academic implications, the Quintuple Helix model and the KBUD theory have been found to be useful to describe the revitalization processes analyzed. From the perspective of policymakers in urban revitalization, this work can inspire other cities that want to transform old industrial areas (brownfield transformation) into socially conscious, creative and knowledge-based economy hubs. Furthermore, this study suggests a holistic perspective that includes local specificities in the revitalization processes.

Using a case method, this work has explored four Brazilian urban revitalizations, the evolution of 22@Barcelona Innovation District and the San Francisco-Silicon Valley Ecosystem.