This article suggests the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EPD) that underlies Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) is not so much caught in the transition from the Triple to the Quadruple Helix, as rooted in a division within civil society. In particular, rooted in a division within civil society, over public trust in the EDP and around the democratic deficit of RIS3. Over public trust in the EDP and around the democratic deficit of RIS3 as a transgression, which centers attention on the participatory governance of science and technology, which is regressive in nature and whose knowledge economy seeks to overcome such limitations as part of the search for sustainable regional growth that serves civil society.