The Evolutionary Emergence of Quintuple Helix Coalitions: A Case Study of Place-Based Sustainability Transition

Abstract Complex societal, environmental, and economic challenges are affecting the post-covid-19 societies. They must increasingly rely on multi-stakeholders’ and multi-domain coalitions to find innovative solutions and achieve sustainability transitions in the near future. Triple helix model featuring interactions among academia, industry, and government successfully explained collaboration in technological innovation dynamics. The models integrating a fourth helix., i.e., bringing knowledge from the civil society and a fifth helix i.e., bringing knowledge from the natural environment, emerged to understand innovations addressing complex societal and environmental problems. By adopting an evolutionary perspective and incorporating agency in the quintuple helix, we propose a conceptual framework to shed light on how multi-domain coalitions might emerge in local productive systems engaging in sustainability transitions. Drawing on this framework, we analyze the case of a rural local system where a quintuple helix coalition emerges together with the development and adoption of sustainable agronomic practices triggering a sustainability transition process.