Universities as Innovation Actors in Digital Economy Context

Knowledge-based innovations have emerged as a major driver of economic growth in the 21st century. Universities have been one of the leading drivers of new knowledge for many centuries. The study aims to analyze the transformation of universities into innovation actors in digital economy building and using digital and information technologies in this process. For analyzing this problem, the system approach is used. The university is seen as a complex system of production and dissemination of knowledge, interacting with other systems of creation, distribution and use of knowledge in society. The article concentrates on designing and redesigning concepts on knowledge production and innovation. The key points are the Triple Helix, Quadruple Helix, and Quintuple Helix for innovation, Mode 1 and Mode 2 for knowledge production and digital university as a component of digital economy. These concepts are all published and thus publicly accessible. The article based on a literature review on these concepts. Authors propose the concept of the Digital Quintuple Helix Model as Quintuple Helix analytically applied to the socio-economic issue of digital economy.