Loet Leydesdorff, co-founder at of the triple helix conference series passed eleven March 2023, finally giving way in a struggle with a debilitating condition. He worked throughout, even in hospital, as always. On Monday20 March our dear colleague and friend was memorialized in an event attended by family, friends and colleagues in Amsterdam.
Beyond his stellar role as a leading researcher in scientometric and innovation studies Loet was a linchpin in the triple helix ecosystem through his inter-continental collaborations. At triple helix meetings he could be found huddling with one co-author and then the next from Ph.D. neophytes to leading figures.
Loet was social hole in the technical Burtian sense of a key node that made a network possible. Like Silicon Valley Bank that failed virtually simultaneously, providing the social glue of the Napa Valley wine industry and the Sand Hill Road venture capital complex, Loet’s departure represents more than end of a quantitative flow but also an ecosystem gap, difficult to fill.
The first step though is reflection on the true nature of the loss in both instances. In the Silicon Valley case, it may presage a de-concentration of innovation resources. Their wide spreading throughout the US is being positively assisted by the NSF’s staff new innovation engine initiative that gives this heretofore basic research support agency, with a modest subsidiary technology transfer mission, a full-fledged industrial policy mission correctly noted by EU President Van der Leyn.
The presence of the Triple Helix Institute CEO at the memorial aula and the absence of a representative from the Triple Helix Association’s Executive Committee may symbolize analogous centrifugal implications. Time will tell; it always does!
We feel deeply the loss of a true friend and colleague. Loet was an exemplar as well as an an anomaly: suit wearer in informal Amsterdam; car driver in a biking city; seven days in his university office. Loet’s children enjoyed his breakfast easygoing companionship and he and Margaret were a life team. We have only begun to comprehend our loss as we honor him.
