Abstract
The defense industry has unique features involving national sovereignty. Despite the characteristics that led to the separation of the military and civil spheres, since the 1990s, the number of dual-use projects has been growing. Taking into account that Portugal is a small European country, this paper analyzes the relationships within the defense industry in order to determine how university–industry–government relationships (the Triple Helix) function in this specific industry. The analysis of 145 projects of the Portuguese Ministry of Defense led to the following conclusions: first, academia was represented in more than 90% of the projects, and 40% of those projects have a dual-use application; second, there is a predominance of knowledge production, dissemination and application, for which the university’s institutional sphere is essential and third, the Triple Helix system evolves into a network of relationships that involve projects with both civil and military applications.
Highlights
The security and defense of a country are a matter of sovereignty and governments consider the integrity of the defense industry very carefully
These results show the key role of knowledge in the Portuguese defense industry, where the predominance of academia—perhaps overemphasized by the presence of both universities and military academies—indicates that government and industry can access and share knowledge through it, thereby confirming that the Portuguese defense industry acts as a system in transition to a knowledge society
This paper focuses on research and development (R&D) projects in the Portuguese defense industry, in order to identify the collaborative relationships between the institutional spheres of university–industry–government, and, at the same time, to assess how and why the Portuguese defense industry is changing
Summary
The security and defense of a country are a matter of sovereignty and governments consider the integrity of the defense industry very carefully. Technology and innovation are widespread, as products are varied and include fields such as: construction, automobiles, aerospace, textiles and garments, ballistics, electronics, and information and communication technologies that can be used in the defense industry, and have dual-use purposes, i.e., the development of technologies with military use and the capacity to be incorporated into civil applications. These dual-use projects create a dual economy as, on one hand, it is subject to market rules and, on the other hand, it is monitored by the government [4]. This fuzzy boundary makes it very difficult to analyze the economic spillovers from research and development (R&D) projects
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