The last decades witnessed the changing of university-industry-governance interactions. This process has led to successive waves of policy-making aiming at bridging the gap between formal and informal knowledge and potential market opportunities, innovation and regional development. There is a growing emphasis in knowledge transfer and valorisation has a crucial element to instigate innovation in a variety of sectors. The relevance of knowledge transfer initiatives and the success of academic spin-offs, among other mechanisms, are evidence of the paradigmatic change within the quadruple helix. One of the sectors where this process is less clear is the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) and some of its specific subsectors (e.g. performing and visual arts), where informal knowledge, situational ties and contextual scale are much more present, and where the role of the university as an enabler of knowledge transfer is less clearly defined. The project 4H-CREAT has sought to target precisely the comprehension of knowledge transfer mechanisms in CCI SMEs. For that the project will use a quadruple helix approach to identify innovation opportunities, key actors, challenges, and solutions in the CCIs sector. This communication provides a preliminary analysis to the sector in the Atlantic Area and tries to clarify the relationship between university and industry, emphasising the roles of knowledge production and talent training. A dedicated CCI knowledge transfer and valorisation model is suggested based on the analysis of the Atlantic Area selected case studies.

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Quadruple helix,Cultural and creative industries,Innovation,Small and medium enterprises,Atlantic area