Triple Helix model is an innovative analytical concept, which creates synergy amongst university, business and government relations, stimulating knowledge-based economies. Albania is a country that sees its future in European Union, an entity based on the knowledge economy. As such, the country has to be swift in using opportunities that encourage the development of research and innovation. It needs policy-led structural transformations to cope with the rapid growth and competitiveness in the region. In this framework, the quality of the human capital is crucial for the successful steps towards socio-economic developments. 

The European Union is actually at the final implementation phase of its stimulating strategy “Europe 2020”, which highlights the education and research as the prominent elements to promote “a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. Albania’s relevant scenery, instead, seems quite unalike. There is actually a very low level of research investments (0.4% of GDP), which is reflected, amongst others, in the qualitative and quantitative level of human resources. It is mirrored, consequently, in the low number of successful applications in the EU research programs at the same time. This landscape becomes specifically evident at the public universities and research entities. The country needs to strengthen inter-institutional cooperation to make sure that adequate strategic documents are in place and realistically achievable. Private sector participation in such EU research and innovation programs remains very low, as well. Hence, respective measures in this dimension are indispensable, as well.

In this context, this paper endeavours to further contribute to the debate on the role of the university and its research structures in the framework of such new developments. It proposes a conceptual framework for analysing variation in the university role during the development of its own research capacities. This framework is based on the process, as such, is complicated taking into consideration the cultural country mind-set, where trust and institutional cooperation is not at the optimal levels, by sometimes constraining each-other’s behaviour. Therefore, translating each-others functional relations and shaping trilateral expectations in an Albanian context remains an enormous barrier.