News from the IPL
INTRODUCTION
This newsletter is published by The Innovation Policy Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, and sponsored by the Ministry of Research and Innovation. The views and ideas expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Ontario Government.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Government of Canada Announces Support to Open New Markets for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
Government of Canada
The Government of Canada recently announced a number of measures to assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seize opportunities abroad as part of the its pro-jobs and pro-export plan. These measures will help SMEs expand their businesses and create jobs by exploring new export opportunities for their goods and services, including to new and emerging markets. The plan includes a new $50 million, five-year export market development program. The fund would provide direct financial assistance in the form of non-repayable contributions to entrepreneurs seeking to export to emerging markets for the first time.
President Announces Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles Institute for Manufacturing Innovation Funding
Advanced Manufacturing Portal
Recently, President Obama announced that $75 million from the Department of Defense has committed to an Institute for Manufacturing Innovation competition in Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles. The Department is launching a competition for leading manufacturers, universities, and non-profits to form a new manufacturing hub focused on revolutionary fibers and textiles technologies. This public-private partnership is expected to generate at least 1:1 cost-share from industry, bringing more than $150 million in public and private investment funds. The Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles Institute for Manufacturing Innovation (RFT-IMI) will ensure that America leads in the manufacturing of new products from leading edge innovations in fiber science, commercializing fibers and textiles with extraordinary properties.
San Diego Launches Initiative to Boost Blue Tech Industry Cluster
Cluster Mapping
The County of San Diego and the City of San Diego recently approved a maritime vision for the region that will include forming a Blue Tech incubator to create jobs and businesses. The joint action promotes “San Diego as a leading global maritime technology center,” according to a resolution. As part of that vision, the agencies will develop a Blue Tech incubator to create more jobs and businesses in water technology, aquaculture, underwater robotics and other related industries.
Editor's Pick
What’s Wrong with the Economy – and with Economics?
The New York Review of Books
A conference on the topic of the economy and economics was held on March 14-15, 2015 – this post includes video footage of the event. This conference took place eight years after the onset of the Great Recession in December 2007, and nearly six years after the recession was declared to be officially over in the US in June 2009. Yet the events of six and eight years ago continue to haunt the world economy. One of the great powers of the global economy, the Eurozone, has yet to put the recession behind it, while the uneven performance of the US economy—spurts of growth accompanied by stagnant real wages—has led economists such as Paul Krugman and Larry Summers to ask whether the US has succumbed to “secular stagnation”: Is the economy now burdened with structural impediments which will make strong and sustained growth difficult to achieve?
Innovation Policy
Towards Stronger Innovation Systems: Lessons from AUCC’s Innovation Policy Dialogue
Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC)
Distinguished higher education leaders from Canada, Germany and Israel came together at the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada’s Optimizing Canada’s innovation system: Perspectives from abroad policy dialogue in October 2014 to explore national policies in science, technology and innovation. This report contains the lessons from this dialogue including a consensus among participants that the core elements of a successful innovation system include factors such as: strong support for basic research; the involvement of students as researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs; support for creativity and risk-taking in research; multidisciplinary collaboration; and strong university-industry ties.
Evolve. Connect. Succeed. Funding a Healthy Research and Innovation Ecosystem
University Alliance (UA)
A world-class research and innovation ecosystem is critical to the future competitiveness and the wellbeing of UK society. Policy makers must ensure this ecosystem can remain excellent – through responding and adapting to fast paced change and increased competition from traditional and emerging powers. This will require not only continued investment in universities but also efficient and effective use of the existing excellence and capability in the system. This report sets out how universities and funders can help secure a research ecosystem that will support the excellent research and innovation that the UK needs to succeed.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Smart Cities in Europe: Enabling Innovation Report
Osborne Clark
What are the challenges being faced by cities that want to become “smart”? Osborne Clarke surveyed 300 senior executives from technology companies, investment funds, banks, consultancies and government officials across Europe and found widespread interest in smart cities. This report looks at what is needed to enable innovation and, in parallel, what is holding back the implementation of innovation. Interestingly, themes arising from the survey included perceptions that smart technology was still being developed and there is lack of funds available for the roll out.
Statistics & Indicators
Measuring an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Dane Stangler and Jordan Bell-Masterson, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
How do you measure your entrepreneurial ecosystem? How should you interpret the data about your startup community? What economic indicators should matter for vibrancy and growth? These questions come up repeatedly in conversations with entrepreneurs, program heads, event organizers, investors, policymakers, and others. The frequency of these queries reflects the phenomenon: With the rapid spread of efforts to build entrepreneurial ecosystems, it’s only natural to wonder what outcomes should be tracked. And, what you track depends on what you’re trying to achieve. This report proposes four indicators that aim to answer the core questions: density (count of new and young firms; share of employment in new and young firms; and sector density), fluidity (population flux; labor market reallocation; and high growth firms), connectivity (program connectivity; spinoff rate; and dealmaker networks), and diversity (multiple economic specializations; mobility; and immigrants).
Basic Scientific and Engineering Research at U.S. Universities – AAU Data and Policy Brief
Association of American Universities
This brief looks at the funding and performance of basic research in the United States, which in 2012 totaled nearly $75 billion, with an emphasis on the role of universities. The data illustrate the importance of the long-standing partnership between universities and the federal government for the nation’s basic research enterprise.
Policy Digest
A Mission-Oriented Approach to Building the Entrepreneurial State
Mariana Mazzucato, Innovate UK
This report argues that policy should look beyond the current economic framework which is focused on fixing market failures. The governments should not just ‘level the playing field’ and let the market decide the direction of change. Rather, this report suggests that a new framework should recognize Government’s role in creating and shaping new markets with the potential to transform economic growth, making it more innovation-led, as well as more inclusive and sustainable.
Countries around the world are seeking smart, sustainable growth. This paper argues that if they are to succeed they must put innovation at the heart of growth policy. However, the current debate is hampered by a limited economic framework – Market Failure Theory – traditionally used by policy makers worldwide. According to this theory, government should take a back seat and simply create the ‘conditions’ for innovation – establishing a playing field but allowing the playing itself to be done by the dynamic business community. The state may be permitted to invest in limited areas that are characterized by ‘market failures’, but should not get too involved in the direction of change itself. This is summed up by the overused phrase -“Governments can’t pick winners”.
The missing piece of the jigsaw
This is particularly relevant now, when the worldwide response to the financial crisis of 2008 has been to cut deficits. As the global debate continues about what should or should not be cut to keep down levels of public debt, a fundamental piece of the jigsaw is missing. And it is this wrangling over the size of deficits – that in the UK is intensifying in the run up to the election – which has deterred focus from are more fundamental questions about the composition of public spending and the type of institutions that guide it. We need to place much greater emphasis on how the choices made about public spending and investment today will affect future growth with the potential to increase the supply of funds available to future private and public investment. In other words, we cannot consider the deficit, without also considering what it is being spent on, with the aim that GDP (the denominator of debt/GDP) can grow in the long-run.
An alternative narrative
This alternative narrative is backed up by the historical reality (as opposed to the myth): regions around the world that have been successful in achieving smart growth—from Silicon Valley in the USA, to the BadenWürttemberg in Germany, and Changzhou in China— have relied on public policy involving lots of picking. Indeed, in the USA, which is so often described as being driven by ‘markets’, it was public policy and government agencies that made the original investments in what later became the internet, GPS and shale gas. Direct investments made through ‘mission oriented’, not ‘market fixing’, agencies. And in the UK, Innovate UK is now a fundamental part of the innovation ecosystem with a mission to help achieve dynamic links between firms, the science base and financial institutions. The real question is not whether or not to choose directions, but how to do it, and what should the future ‘missions’ be?
The role of government in the economy – a new understanding
The question of how to direct state investment requires first of all a new understanding of the role of government in the economy. Positioning innovation policy in a market creation framework rather than a market fixing one provides a new perspective, and begs new questions. Achieving any mission (from putting a man on the moon to developing the internet) requires public and private sectors to work together, and a state both willing and visionary enough to set the direction and create the institutional framework. Today’s societal challenges, which combine social, political, economic and technological ambitions, should guide our new ‘missions’, which necessitate a similar if not greater level of visionary investment and state capacity. By limiting our understanding of the role of the public sector to one that simply ‘administers’, ‘fixes’, ‘regulates’, ‘spends’, ‘meddles’, and at best ‘facilitates’ and ‘de-risks’ the private sector, we are unable to think creatively about how to allow public sector vision, risk-taking and investment to lead and structure the needed transformational changes.
Questions to be addressed
This paper sets out four questions that we must address to enable public and private actors to work together in more symbiotic and dynamic ways:
Directions
How can public policy be understood in terms of setting the direction and route of change; that is, shaping and creating markets rather than just fixing them? What can be learned from the ways in which directions were set in the past, and how can we stimulate more democratic debate about such directionality?
Evaluation
How would a mission-oriented framework, as opposed to a market failure framework, translate into new indicators and assessment tools for evaluating public policies, beyond the micro-economic cost/benefit analysis? How does this alter the crowding in/out narrative?
Organizational change
How should public organizations be structured to accommodate the risk-taking and explorative capacity, and the capabilities needed to envision and manage contemporary challenges?
Risks and rewards
How can this alternative conceptualization be put into practice so investment tools are framed to socialize both risks and rewards and growth is not only ‘smart’ but also ‘inclusive’?
Events
Toronto, 21 April, 2015
Global connectivity is the fundamental challenge of our generation. Gain insight into the future made possible through digital infrastructure. Speakers include: Kristina Verner is the director of intelligent communities for Waterfront Toronto, where she is responsible for a variety of strategic initiatives for one of the world’s pre-eminent intelligent communities. John Helliker is the director of strategic partnerships and the Screen Industries Research and Training Centre at Sheridan College. Glenn Smith, P.Eng., draws on over 20 years of experience in broad business, technology development and commercialization with leadership roles in two University of Waterloo spinoff companies as well as Centres of Excellence in commercialization. Campbell Patterson is the founding partner of CP Communications (CPC). Campbell’s extensive career has seen him as a vice president of J. Walter Thompson Advertising and McDonald’s Restaurants licensee. Anita Simpsonis a superintendent of education for program and innovation with the Simcoe County District School Board. She is also the Canadian Cluster lead for New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL), an international learning lab involving 10 countries and 1,000 schools from around the world.
Delivering Smart Specialization and Economic Transformation Through Clusters
Brussels, Belgium, 27-28 April, 2015
The emphasis on economic transformation and on building inter-regional value chains calls for a new generation of cluster policy approaches. Clusters can be key delivery instruments for national and regional smart specialisation strategies, internal market, re-industrialisation and SME policy. Using interactive formats, this conference will provide a unique opportunity for regional policy makers and cluster actors to share experiences on how smart specialization strategies and clusters can help transform your region and drive growth. Building upon success stories and innovative practices, participants will learn about novel ways of implementing smart specialisation through cluster-based activities and cross-clustering actions. They will also have the chance to explore new partnerships for joint activities in the context of the new generation of European programmes such as ERDF, COSME and Horizon2020. This is an event jointly organised by DGs GROW and REGIO of the European Commission
The Organization, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research
Torino, Italy, 11-12 May, 2015
LEI & BRICK with financial support from the Collegio Carlo Alberto are organizing their annual workshop on “The Organization, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research”. The aim of the workshop is to bring together a small group of scholars interested in the analysis of the production and diffusion of scientific research from an economics, historical, organizational, and policy perspective. The deadline for paper submission is January 31, 2015.
The Global City, Past and Present
St. Andrews, Scotland, 14-15 May, 2015
This first Call for Papers invites submissions from scholars of all humanities and social science disciplines working on the issue of “Space” in the early modern colonial city and its modern descendants. At the intersection of empires, cultures, and economies, urban spaces and structures were, and continue to be, shaped by the cities’ global connections. Through an exploration of all aspects of the urban built environment, the workshop will start a conversation between scholars working on the spatial characteristics of those cities that first rose to prominence in the early modern imperial world.
Tech Leadership Conference: What Worked Yesterday is Obsolete Tomorrow
Kitchener, 28 May, 2015
Tech and society change quickly. The best business ideas can be outdated in months. To stay on top today takes visioneering: the process of building a dream into a workable application. Communitech’s Tech Leadership Conference is the largest annual all-day gathering of tech decision makers in Waterloo Region. It’s about creating market expectations and establishing the region as the best place on the planet for tech companies to start, grow and succeed. On May 28, gain insights from renowned keynotes and take part in sessions led by industry experts.
The Chicago Forum on Global Cities
Chicago, 27-29 May, 2015
Global cities rise above the rest. They have the scope, ambition, and clout to shape not just the world’s economy but its ideas, its culture, its policies, and its future. They set the standards and make the rules. Big and connected, they transcend national frontiers and disrupt international agendas. They are magnets for business, people, money, and innovation. And yet global pathologies—terrorism, inequality, climate change—hit global cities first and hardest. Powerful and resourceful, global cities are the key actors in driving political, social, and economic policies and solving critical world challenges. This conference will bring together global city leaders of the four pillars vital to urban life—business, education, arts and culture, civics—for a multidisciplinary discussion on how they can collaborate to make their cities more economically vital, socially inclusive, and environmentally livable. The future of global cities will be defined by the mayors and maestros, the scholars and CEOs, who will attend and participate in this unique global forum in a unique global city.
DRUID 15 – The Relevance of Innovation
Rome, Italy, 15-17 June, 2015
Since 1995 DRUID has become one of the world’s premier academic conferences on innovation and the dynamics of structural and geographic change. Presenting distinguished plenary speakers, a range of parallel paper sessions, and a highly attractive social program, the conference aims at mapping theoretical, empirical and methodological advances, and contributing novel insights.
ZEW/MaCCI Conference on the Economics of Innovation and Patenting
Mannheim, Germany, 2-3 July, 2015
This conference aims at stimulating discussion between international researchers conducting related empirical, and theoretical analysis. In addition, the conference will focus on policy implications of recent research. Theoretical, empirical and policy-oriented contributions from all areas of the economics of innovation and patenting are welcome. The conference is sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.
Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy
Atlanta, Georgia, 17-19 September, 2015
The Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy provides a showcase for the highest quality scholarship addressing the multidimensional challenges and interrelated characteristics of science and innovation policy and processes. The conference attracts over 300 researchers from more than 35 countries and includes a series of plenary talks; parallel paper sessions to discuss ongoing research; and a young researcher poster competition. Next year’s session will explore the research front addressing the broad range of issues central to the structure, function, performance and outcomes of the science and innovation enterprises.
4th European Colloquium on Culture, Creativity and Economy 
Florence, Italy, 8-10 October, 2015
During the past decades myriad links between culture, creativity and economic practice have become major topics of interdisciplinary study. This colloquium aims to bring together leading edge scholars from across the social sciences to critically examine the intersections between these spheres and symbolic and culturally embedded values in particular, and how they are pervaded by and pervade the global economy. Our aim is to create a space for vibrant critical discussion about how ‘creativity’, cultural meanings, cultural phenomena, cultural workers and organizations are not only valuable to the market but increasingly drivers and framers of the systems of value and taste that economic actors attempt to capture and trade upon. Though culture and creativity have always been central to human civilization there is increasingly a need to understand culture and creativity as central agencies and motifs in the current stage of globalized capitalism, in the digital and knowledge economy, and in the development of human values, communities, regions and cities.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.