About the Artist

French artists Léonore Bonaccini and Xavier Fourt are the duo Bureau d’études and have become known for their particularly detailed maps of political, social and economic systems. The duo excels in research required for creating huge maps that look like enormous murals. On their maps, the artists show how power structures impact our society. In this way, they want to create awareness of how seemingly unrelated matters actually appear to be related when viewed from a larger perspective. The maps help disentangle complex systems and recognise our own position in them. If you know where you are, you can steer your own course, suggest alternatives and use the map to create new routes for yourself or your community.

About the Search Question

For the Department of Search, Bureau d’études creates a power map of the Utrecht Science Park. It is a search of how the Utrecht Science Park has been set up. Which factors are involved? What possibilities will they identify if we want culture and the environment to influence the development of the campus?

The Utrecht Science Park is the driving force behind the Utrecht knowledge economy. Governments and parties at the USP work together on providing an internationally authoritative environment to attract businesses, institutes and organisations that are active in the cluster of life sciences, sustainability and health. The Utrecht Science Park Foundation aims at adding social and economic value to the regional economy. A strategy to encourage innovative environments is indicated in the so-called triple helix partnership. This model is centred on three parties: knowledge institutions, business and government.

Some people have argued for several years that the approach of a triple helix is too limited to work on innovation environments in the twenty-first century. Some economists believe that social and cultural society should also be part of the collaboration, making the approach a quadruple helix. If the environment and ecological values are also taken into account, there will be a quintuple helix. In the quintuple helix, all parties mentioned above are connected and work towards a smarter, more sustainable and more inclusive development of the local economy and society. Bureau d’études is working on a power map of the Utrecht Science Park, which can serve as a guideline for bringing about this quintuple helix.

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