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
New Creative Cities Publication
The Creative City Network of Canada has just released a special report on cultural infrastructure to assist Canadian municipalities plan for renovations and new building projects. The document, Cultural Infrastructure: An Integral Component of Canadian Communities, based on international and national research, is being distributed to municipalities across the country.
Venture Capital Fund Invests in Jobs of the Future
The Ontario Venture Capital Fund is committing $20 million in EdgeStone Capital Venture Fund III (EdgeStone) to help support innovative, high-growth businesses, including high-potential companies in Ontario. The $205-million Ontario Venture Capital Fund, managed by TD Capital Private Equity Investors, is a joint initiative between the provincial government and leading institutional investors to invest primarily in Ontario-based and Ontario-focused venture capital and growth equity funds. Today’s announcement by TD Capital Private Equity Investors comes on the heels of TD announcing its first Ontario-based commitment of up to $15 million to Georgian Partners on March 24, 2009. It also follows a recent announcement by Ontario to create a new $250-million Emerging Technologies Fund, to help drive private sector investment into new Ontario technology start-ups.
Government of Canada Announces New Ocean Research and Commercialization Centre in Victoria
Andrew Saxton, MP for North Vancouver and Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, on behalf of the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology) recently announced the establishment of the Oceans Network Canada Centre for Enterprise and Engagement, (ONCEE), a new Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR). The ONCEE will manage two highly sophisticated underwater laboratories that will support transformative research on our oceans and create unprecedented economic and outreach opportunities. These innovations will dramatically improve the scientific communities’ ablity to plan for and respond to sea-based disasters, including improved risk assessments and a better understanding of seismic and tsunami hazards. The CECR program is a key commitment of Canada’s Science and Technology Strategy, Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage, announced in May 2007. Canada’s Economic Action Plan provides $5.1 billion in additional funding toward science and technology initiatives.
Government of Canada Helps Create the Ivey Centre for Health Innovation and Leadership
The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, recently announced that the Government of Canada will help create the Ivey Centre for Health Innovation and Leadership. The internationally recognized Richard Ivey School of Business will bring together expertise from the business, health sciences and medical sectors to develop specialized talent and commercialize health innovations that will benefit Canada’s health care providers and patients.
Editor's Pick
Insight: Leaders and Laggards of Ontario – How Our Metro Regions Stack Up
Martin Prosperity Institute
Which of Ontario’s cities are better prepared for the profound transformation into the creative age? To better understand how Ontario’s city regions are competing this paper used the Creative Class Index to compare them to peer city regions of roughly equal size from across the US and Canada. Composed of variables from each of the 3Ts of economic development (Technology, Talent and Tolerance), the composite score is reflective of a region’s ability to become more vibrant and prosperous. Economic development in the creative age requires strong performance on all of the 3Ts; each one is necessary, but alone is insufficient to achieve sustainable growth. The paper assesses 15 census metropolitan areas (CMAs) that account for 82% of Ontario’s 12.2 million people and approximately 92% of Ontario’s regional GDP of $530 billion. These 15 regions were placed into 5 major groupings based on size (e.g. Toronto CMA with approximately 5.3 million people to Peterborough’s CMA with a population of approximately 110,000) and within each size group 10 peers were selected. Findings show that Ontario’s city regions tended to perform average compared to their peer group often ranking in the middle 5 or below.
Innovation Policy
Report on Canada 2009: Opportunity in Turmoil
The Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity
Despite public concerns about the current economic slowdown, Canadians have an opportunity to build our future prosperity by ensuring we keep a balanced perspective on short-term and long-term challenges. In this report the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity and the Martin Prosperity Institute call on individuals, business leaders, and governments to look for hope and optimism in the stormy times of the current economic downturn.
Capitalizing on Innovation: The Case of Japan
Robert Dujarric and Andrei Hagiu, HBS
Japan’s industrial landscape is characterized by hierarchical forms of industry organization, which are increasingly inadequate in modern sectors, where innovation relies on platforms and horizontal ecosystems of firms producing complementary products. Using three case studies – software, animation and mobile telephony -, the authors of this paper illustrate two key sources of inefficiencies that this mismatch can create. They argue that Japan has to adopt several key legislative measures in order to address these inefficiencies and capitalize on its innovation: strengthening antitrust and intellectual property rights enforcement; improving the legal infrastructure (e.g. producing more business law attorneys); lowering barriers to entry for foreign investment and facilitating the development of the venture capital sector.
Knowledge Workers and Knowledge Work
Ian Brinkley et. al., The Work Foundation
The purpose of this report is to provide a portrait of work and the workforce in the knowledge economy – who the knowledge workers are, what they do in their jobs, where they are employed and what employment structures, job characteristics and organizational structures look like in the knowledge economy. Knowledge work and knowledge workers are terms often used but seldom defined. When knowledge work is defined it is usually by broad measures such by job title or by education level. At best this provides a partial and simplistic view of knowledge work in the UK. This report takes a new approach. In a large and unique survey, it asked people what they actually do at work and how often they perform particular tasks. This information is used to assess the knowledge content of their jobs. The key test was the cognitive complexity required for each task – the use of high level ‘tacit’ knowledge that resides in people’s minds rather than being written down (or codified) in manuals, guides, lists and procedures.
Miranda Green, FT
Across the world, business people, creative types and technology geeks struggle to understand each other. Their education and training, even much of their work, is carried out in separate silos, with exciting collaborations the exception rather than the rule. Now Helsinki’s business school, art college and technology school have come up with a radical plan: a three-way merger to create what they claim will be a unique, integrated seedbed for innovation. The new institution, Aalto University, will offer joint courses later this year and will be open fully at the beginning of 2010 as the flagship project in a national shake-up of higher education. The government, academics and Finland’s business community, which is strongly represented on Aalto’s board, are hoping to capitalize on the country’s record in industrial and product design and to create an internationally competitive, business-focused institution that takes inter-disciplinary working to an extreme not seen anywhere else in the world.
European Commission
As a result of the Lisbon strategy adopted by the European Council and creation of the European Research Area (ERA) in 2000, science has become a central component of European policy discussions. The expert group affirmed this significance, arguing that it extends beyond Europe as the geography of science around the world changes. Indeed, as a political entity situated between national and global levels, with its principles of good governance, charter of fundamental rights and commitments to a European Research Area, the European Union is ideally placed to encourage critical reflection and undertake practical leadership in relation to the global governance of science and innovation.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Creative Industries, New Firm Foundation and Regional Economic Growth
Roberta Piergiovanni, Martin Carree, and Enrico Santarelli
The present study explores the impact exerted by a series of factors and processes including creativity, IPR activities, new business formation and the provision of amenities on economic growth for 103 Italian provinces (NUTS 3) over the period between 2001 and 2006. Provincial growth rates are measured alternatively by value added growth and employment growth. Findings show a positive effect of the increase in the number of firms active in the creative industries, net entry, and a greater provision of leisure amenities on regional economic growth. A large portion of employment in the manufacturing, mining, and energy sector, and a high relative number of university faculties are found to lead to slower economic growth, whereas trademarks, patents, cultural amenities and industrial districts do not affect economic growth. Finally, the share of legal immigrants is found to have a positive impact on employment growth.
Statistics & Indicators
TechAmerica
This report examines the size and scope of the high-technology industry in terms of jobs, wages, and other factors nationally and in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Despite the recent economic downturn, the high-tech industry added jobs to the U.S. economy for the fourth consecutive year. The tech industry added 77,000 net jobs in 2008, for a total of 5.9 million workers. This is on top of job gains of 79,600 in 2007, 139,000 in 2006, and 87,400 in 2005. The report provides 2008 national data on tech employment as well as 2007 national and state-by-state data on high-tech employment, wages, establishments, payroll, wage differential, and employment concentration. All data are the most recent available at the time of publication.
Frameworks for Measuring Innovation: Initial Approaches
Susan Rose, et. al., Athena Alliance
Innovation has long been recognized as an important driver of economic growth. Most empirical research and surveys of firms show that innovation leads to new products and services that are higher in quality and lower in price. Historically, innovation has been treated as a residual measure after accounting for other factors of growth (mostly labor and capital). The primary goal in measuring innovation is to improve our understanding of growth. The actual output of innovation in terms of new goods and services or improved processes is already captured in the gross domestic product (GDP) and the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs). The amount and type of investment that lead to innovation, however, are not captured. This type of information is needed to improve our understanding of economic growth. This report proposes a set of attributes of innovation and a new relationship between intangible assets and innovation.
Job Sprawl Revisited: The Changing Geography of Metropolitan Employment
Elizabeth Kneebone, Brookings Institution
Amid changing economic conditions—expansion, contraction, and recovery—during the late 1990s and early 2000s, employment in metropolitan America steadily decentralized. The spatial distribution of jobs has implications for a range of policy issues—from housing to transportation to economic development—and should be taken into account as metro areas work to achieve more productive, inclusive, and sustainable growth and, in the near term, economic recovery.
Policy Digest
Governing Regional Development Policy: The Use of Performance Indicators
OECD
This report examines both the challenges and the opportunities associated with designing and using indicator systems as a tool for the governance of regional development policy. It draws on the experiences of a number of OECD countries and provides an in-depth look at the cases of Italy, the United Kingdom (England), the United States and the European Union. It builds on previous OECD work on the governance of regional development policy by extending lessons about contractual relations among levels of government to performance indicator systems.
Indicator systems offer regional policy stakeholders a tool for meeting two important challenges: information gaps between actors and distributing information to improve the formulation of objectives. A system of indicators addreses both of these challenges by complementing contractual relationships between levels of government and by bringing together and distrubuting otherwise disparate information and creating and common frame of reference for dialogue about regional policy.
These systems also promote learning and orient stakeholders towards results. They provide information to enhance decision making throughout the policy cycle from resource allocation to policy or program adjustments. Reaping the benefits of an indicator system is not automatic, however. Careful consideration must be given to issues of system design, such as establishing clear objectives, selecting appropriate indicators, introducing incentive mechanisms, and planning for use of information. Challenges will emerge in both the process of design and use. The characteristics of regional policy, the capcities of stakeholders, availability of data, and the costs associated with indicators systems can complicate effective monitoring. Mechanisms for addressing these challenges include, but are not limited to, engaging stakeholders at all levles of government in the design and use of indicator systems; using pilot projects to test systems prior to nationwide implementation; using external consultants to fill gaps in technical expertise; streamlining procedures to minimize administrative burdens; and anticipating and budgeting for training and support.
These good practices are linked to a series of key findings which emerge from the report:
- Indicator systems promote learning: The process of developing and implementing indicator systems exposes stakeholders to new information. The feedback provided can be used for continuour improvement in terms of policy and to the indicator system itself.
- There is no optimal design for an indicator system: The design and use of the system will depend heavily on the objectives established fir the monitoring system and policy/program objectives. Establishing clear objectives from the start will greatly facilitate indicator selection, incentives, and choices about how to use information.
- Incentives are inevitable with the use of indicator systems: The strength of incentives depends on how information will be used and by whom. Attaching explicit rewards (or sanctions) to performance data can be a powerful way to encourage effort and improvement.
- Partnership between central and sub-central levels of government is crucial: Vertical interactions between institutional levels as well as horizontal cooperation and peer processes facilitate the formulation of precise objectives, identifying relevant indicators, setting realistic stretch tagets and devising appropriate incentive mechanisms.
- Indicator systems should help inform short-term decisions as well as long-term strategy: Regional development policy produces outcomes that materialize over an extended period of time. Orienting an indicator system toward these outcomes can be beneficial.
Overall this report suggests that indicator systems are an important tool in the large toolkit of good governance practices. While implementation is not without challenges, indicator systems can bridge information gaps, generate a common point of reference for stakeholders, reveal where good practice occurs, and stimulate effort in particular areas. Most importantly they provide an opportunity for ongoing learning and adjustment, about policies, programs, and good governance. This is especially critical for enhancing relationships between levels of government, a key ingredient for effective regional development policy.
Events
Creative Industries, Scenes, Cities, Places: Idiosyncratic Dimensions of the Cultural Economy
Cardiff, UK, 22-23 April, 2008
This seminar will focus on the relationship between places (cities, neighbourhoods, and quarters) and the development of creative industries. The range of papers should cover both theoretical perspectives and practical examples of the issues and challenges faced by researchers in trying to capture the economic, social and cultural dimensions of the creative economy. The conference will focus on four themes and questions: How to study the relationship between creative industries and city-regions. What are the methodologies which address the way creative industries produce and interact with their markets? What is the role of place at various levels (city, neighbourhood, regions) in fostering creativity and creative production? What is the importance of public support policies and frameworks in developing the creative industries sector? Does fostering creative industries mean enabling regional growth?
Regional Excellence in Innovation: Case Studies from Around the World
Thessaloniki, Greece, 22-24 April, 2009
Faced with today’s challenge of sustaining competitiveness in a world of global competition, Europe’s regions are required to improve their own regional innovation system and adapt the offer of innovation support services to the rapidly changing needs of local companies and, in particular, SMEs. The recent slow-down of the world economy and the spectre of recession make this challenge all the more urgent as the need for new, tried and tested approaches becomes indispensable.TII’s 2009 annual conference will showcase examples of programs, schemes and models which can demonstrate their real impact on raising regional innovation performance through facts, figures and anecdotal evidence or success stories.
Toronto, 28-29 April, 2009
This three day event brings together key industry players interested in investment opportunities and issues affecting companies in the life science and cleantech sectors. Presenting companies will span a range of industries including biologics, medical devices, drug delivery, vaccines, diagnostics, bio-energy, agriculture and food, industrial biotech, alternative energy and clean technologies.
11th Annual Innovation Systems Research Network Conference
Halifx, 29 April – 1 May, 2009
This conference brings together researchers from across the country around the theme of “Social Dynamics and Economic Performance: Innovation and Creativity in City-Regions”. The Policy Day meeting will take place on Wednesday, April 29th. The objective of this meeting is to provide a forum where the members of the research team, including co-investigators, domestic collaborators and our distinguished Research Advisory Committee members who come from various disciplines in Europe and the United States, can meet with federal, provincial and municipal officials who have an interest in the outcomes of our current major research initiative. The focus of the Policy Day this year is the contribution of physical, research and cultural infrastructure to innovation and creativity in urban city regions. The ISRN National Meeting takes place on Thursday and Friday, April 30th and May 1st. During these sessions, our project researchers will be presenting the results of our ongoing research and discussing the broader themes involved in our national research project. You are more than welcome to join us for this part of the meeting and you can register online for these sessions. Breakfast and lunch is included. There is a registration option to join us for the Annual ISRN Dinner on Thursday evening.
Community Engagement and Service: The Third Mission of Universities
Vancouver, BC, 18-20 May, 2009
The conference will showcase research and practice of what in North America is called ‘service to the community’. Although newly discovered by some universities, service to the community has long traditions in others, and in many cases is recognized as an explicit mandate in the university charter. Service is understood to be the Third Mission alongside teaching and research. Service and community engagement take many different forms. Examples are community based research and learning, assistance in regional development, continuing and community engagement, technology transfer and commercialization, and other forms of knowledge sharing and linkages.
Photonics North 2009: Closing the Gap Between Theory, Development, and Application
Quebec City, 24-27 May, 2009
This conference is an international event dedicated on the latest accomplishments, future directions and innovations exclusive to optics/ photonics technologies. Presentations will explore advances in Science and technology that will impact the use of photonics in the 21st century. Photonics North will provide you with the knowledge and competitive intelligence you need to keep up in the industry that changes and evolves at break-neck speed.
Intellectual Property Rights: Innovation and Commercialization in Turbulant Times
Toronto, 29 May, 2009
Effective IPR protection is essential to capitalize on innovation and encourage investment in research and development facilities and services. Canada needs world-class intellectual property policy and practices to compete globally. Policymakers and business leaders need to recognize IPR’s crucial role in fostering innovation and enabling businesses to capitalize on development investments and successfully commercialize their innovations. What is the role of IPR in helping companies continue investing in research and development (R&D)? How does this investment affect their ability to emerge even stronger and better able to compete in a recovering and knowledge-based economy? What’s being done now and what can be done by educators, regulators, and business organizations to help companies develop intellectual property to drive business success? Learn from industry experts and intellectual property thought leaders how you can capitalize on innovation and benefit from more effective intellectual property protection.
The Innovation Economy: Getting New Ideas, New Partners and New Growth for the Global Economy
Brussels, 2 June, 2009
This international policy dialogue will be held on June 2, 2009 in Brussels. Topics to be discussed include: high-growth entrepreneurship, university research, international R&D collaboration, the innovation agenda of the next European commission, open innovation, joint programming of research.
Madrid, Spain, 4-6 June, 2009
The European Urban Research Association (EURA) and the Urban Affairs Association (UAA) hold their second Joint Conference on City Futures in 2009. By building on the success of the first such conference, held in Chicago in 2004, the conference aims to focus sharply on international exchange. Urban scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have created a five-track structure for this forward-looking conference: Climate change, resource use and urban adaptation; Knowledge and technology in urban development; Community development, migration and integration in urban areas; Urban governance and city planning in an international era; Architecture and the design of the public realm
Glasgow, Scotland, 17-19 June, 2009
Triple Helix VII offers a multi-disciplinary forum for experts from universities, industry and government. The Conference is designed to attract leading authorities from across the world who will share their knowledge and experience, drawing a link between research, policy, and practice in sustainable development. The Conference will bring together policy-makers, academics, researchers, postgraduate students, and key representatives from business and industry. The theme for Triple Helix VII – “The role of Triple Helix in the Global Agenda of Innovation, Competitiveness and Sustainability” – reflects the interaction between academia, the private and the public sector.
Innovation, Strategy and Knowledge: 2009 DRUID Summer Conference
Copenhagen, Denmark, 17-19 June, 2009
The DRUID Summer Conference 2009 intends to map theoretical, empirical and methodological advances, further contribute with novel insights and stimulate civilized controversies in industrial dynamics. The conference will include targeted plenary debates where internationally merited scholars take stands on contemporary issues within the overall conference theme. This year’s conference will bring together researchers from around the world to exchange research results and to address open issues. The plenary program will include, among others, contributions from Juan Alcacer, William Barnet, Adam Brandenburger, Russell Coff, Wes Cohen, Massimo Colombo, Phil Cooke, Giovanni Dosi, Jan Fagerberg, Andrea Fosfuri, Tim Foxon, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Michael Jacobides, / /Rene Kemp, Thorbjørn Knudsen, Mike Lenox, Dan Levinthal, Will Mitchell, Paul Nightingale, Laszlo Poloz, Laura Poppo, Michael Ryall, Dan Snow, Bart Verspagen, Sidney Winter
Experience the Creative Economy
Toronto, 23-25 June, 2009
This is a unique conference which allows scholars new in their careers to experience notions of the creative economy in a small and focused setting. This conference will bring together up to 25 individuals with similar research interests to share their work, receive feedback, foster the development of effective research methods and to establish an ongoing framework of collaborative learning and mutual exchange for years to come.
TEKPOL: 3rd International Conference on Innovation, Technology and Knowledge Economics
Ankara, Turkey, 24-26 June, 2009
The main objective of this workshop is to bring together researchers and policy makers from new member states and candidate counties in order to discuss the following topics: links between innovation, R&D and economic performance; innovation and technology diffusion; knowledge management and learning in organizations; systemic nature of innovation (national, sectoral and local); science, technology and innovation policies; issues concerning developing countries and technological change; economic impact of new technologies.
Global Science and the Economics of Knowledge Sharing Institutions
Torino, Italy, 28-30 June, 2009
This conference – held within the context of the EU-funded project COMMUNIA, the European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain – aims to bring together leading people from a number of international scientific research communities, social science researchers and science, technology and innovation policy analysts, to discuss the rationale, policy support and practical feasibility of arrangements designed to emulate key public domain conditions for collaborative research. Initiatives and policies have been proposed that go beyond “open access” to published research findings by aiming to facilitate more effective and extensive (global) sharing of not only data and information, but research facilities, tools, and materials. There is thus a need to examine a number of these proposals’ conceptual foundations from the economic and legal perspectives and to analyze the roles of the public domain and contractually constructed commons in facilitating sharing of scientific and technical data, information and materials. But it is equally important to examine the available evidence about actual experience with concrete organizational initiatives in different areas of scientific and technological research, and to devise appropriate, contextually relevant methods of assessing effectiveness and identifying likely unintended and dysfunctional outcomes.
12th Annual Conference on Technology Policy and Innovation – ICTPI09
Porto, Portugal, 13-14 July, 2009
The theme and motto of the 12th ICTPI Conference – Science, Technology and Knowledge Networks – long term growth strategies to face the financial crisis – will seek to challenge the participants in developing strategic responses to the crisis that integrate long-term concerns, by involving research and development, higher-education and science-based innovation.
Research and Entrepreneurship in the Knowledge-Based Economy 
Milan, Italy, 7-8 September, 2009
Knowledge creation and management has been widely recognized as the main driving force for the economic growth of advanced economies. In the knowledge-based economy, learning, knowledge, research and human capital are key variables in the development of firms, sectors and countries. The increasing importance of the knowledge-based economy leads to a growing number of challenges for the actors involved: the need to integrate and coordinate research, a better definition of actions and the search for the right instruments to tackle the cognitive and management aspects of the processes and to evaluate outcomes and effects. Within this framework, the conference aims to create an opportunity for presentation of current research in the field and to open a space for debating on the impact of investments in research and human capital on firms, sectors and countries in the knowledge-based economy, and on the role for public policy. Keynote speakers include: Giovanni Dosi, Dominique Foray, Franco Malerba, Pascal Petit and Rehinilde Veuglers.
4th European Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Antwerp, Belgium, 10-11 September, 2009
n the light of the European Lisbon goals, the importance of the conference topics cannot be underestimated. Entrepreneurship and innovation should be the driving force in the transition of the Western economies towards knowledge-intensive economies – a necessity to maintain our current living standards. Knowledge creation and dissemination to society are indispensable to advance into the next era. The conference welcomes academics, researchers and industrial delegates to join this innovative program.
Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2009
Atlanta, 2-3 Oct, 2009
Governments seek new strategies and are turning to the science, technology, and innovation policy research community for models and research results to tell them what works, what doesn’t, and under what circumstances. Test models of innovation. Explore emerging STI policy issues. Share research results. The online process for paper submission is now closed.
Stimulating Recovery: The Role of Innovation Management
New York, 6-9 December, 2009
Organised by ISPIM and hosted by The Fashion Institute of Technology this symposium will bring together academics, business leaders, consultants and other professionals involved in innovation management. The symposium format will include facilitated themed sessions for academic and practitioner presentations together with interactive workshops and discussion panels. Additionally, the symposium will provide excellent networking opportunities together with a taste of local New York culture.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.