Dr Christiane Gebhardt holds a degree in Public Administration from the University of Konstanz, a PhD in Innovation Policy from the University of Giessen and a Master of Science degree in Biodiversity, Ecosystem Health, and Wildlife at the University of Edinburgh and is currently based in Switzerland and Germany.
Christiane is Member of the Board and Vice President of the Triple Helix Association , and editor of the Triple Helix Journal of University-Industry Government Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Christiane has been on the Triple Helix Board for a long time and is responsible for conferences and sponsorships. She has introduced new topics to the Triple Helix such as Cities (2012, London), Innovation and Environmental Policies, and Transition Management Research (Barcelona, 2023).
For 20 years Christiane was Partner at Malik Institute in Switzerland, an international consulting firm renowned for systemic strategy and organisation advisory for industry, university/ science, and government. Her research and work focus on strategy, organisational development, and operational management for mastering complex projects and stakeholder-driven innovation, including research on biocybernetics in clusters.
Among her clients and partners are multinational companies, European Institute of Innovation and Technology, the Federal Ministry of Research, Technologie and Space in Germany and, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation Switzerland, the Helmholtz Association of German Research Institutes, and many industries, start-ups, and national champions. She organised the BRAINPORT Smart&Sustainable City Syntegration and the FONA-funded SMARTilience Project with Fraunhofer and regional innovation clusters in Solar Energy, Agrifood and Plasmamedicine. She was a member of the German Leading-Edge Cluster Commission from 2009 – 2014 after evaluating the German Entrepreneurial Regions program for Eastern Germany. She is an EU expert on smart specialisation implementation and has carried out research at Chicago University and MIT in Boston, MA.
After launching the Smart and Sustainable City as a regional division at a global technical construction consultancy, she founded her own company, Silverapples Switzerland, which focuses on systemic advisory in strategy and organisation and start up investments related to innovation and governance of transformation.
Recent Publications
Gebhardt, C. (2022). What governance for regional innovation clusters? Meta-organisational analysis of the German innovation cluster ‘Physics for Food’. In Clusters and Sustainable Regional Development (pp. 42-60). Routledge.
Gebhardt, C., Almeida, M., & Etzkowitz, H. (2022). Triple helix twins: Operationalizing the sustainability agenda in the Northern Black Forest National Park in Germany. Triple Helix, 9(2), 184-215.
Gebhardt, C. (2020). The impact of participatory governance on regional development pathways: citizen-driven smart, green and inclusive urbanism in the Brainport Metropolitan Region. Triple Helix, 6(1), 69-110.