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
Stem Cell Research Bringing Jobs and Innovation to Ontario
Ontario is supporting a world-class stem cell research project to help revolutionize treatments for major health conditions like cancer, heart disease and traumatic injuries, and create high-value jobs in Toronto. The province is supporting the Ontario Initiative in Personalized Stem Cell Medicine, a project led by Dr. Janet Rossant of the University of Toronto and SickKids hospital. Dr. Rossant’s team of 30 world-renowned stem cell researchers will use advanced technologies to develop cutting-edge health care products. The provincial investment of $10 million in the project will also support the training and employment of 400 highly qualified research staff over the next five years, right here in Ontario. Funding world-class research is part of the Ontario Innovation Agenda — the McGuinty government’s plan to build an innovation economy that turns new knowledge into new jobs, better health care, a cleaner environment and endless possibilities for Ontario families.
The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology), today announced $159.1 million in funding for 181 Canada Research Chairs newly awarded or renewed in 45 Canadian universities. The funding includes $7.4 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) for research infrastructure, directly benefiting 46 chair holders named in this announcement.
Editor's Pick
The Innovation Platform: Enabling Balance Between Growth and Renewal
Nikales Arvidsson and Ulf Mannervik, VINNOVA
Growth and renewal processes are well established mechanisms for promoting development of lasting value creating innovation systems. This report presents the study that generated the conceptual framework for how to understand the interplay between growth and renewal, with specific attention to the important social network dynamics behind that interplay. It also goes further beyond that and presents how the framework has been deployed in innovation policy analysis and formation in regional and international settings. It shows how innovation can address large scale system failures, and be spearheaded by action in small constellations of actors – driven by continuous dialogue with policy makers. The study shows that innovation policy makers have both opportunities and obligations to help create the conditions that stimulate new business and technology to be explored and to emerge as new growth areas.
Innovation Policy
ICT for the UK’s Future: The Implications of the Changing Nature of Communication and Technology
The Royal Academy of Engineering
For companies and countries alike, a recession represents a period of great challenge. While the impact of recession on businesses, organizations and society as a whole is profound, the most alert should emerge in a stronger competitive position, poised to exploit the subsequent upturn. A key determinant for success in the recovery after the recession will be the degree of exploitation of the immense potential of Information and Communications Technology (IT and ICT1.) to transform both public and private enterprise. IT is itself undergoing profound changes that – unless fully acknowledged, analyzed and addressed – will present significant risks to the future competitiveness of the UK. The pace at which business technology has evolved over the past 30 years has been breathtaking. Since the early origins of mainframe computers and simple desktop PCs we have seen the evolution of corporate networks, the emergence of new business applications and IT architectures, the explosive growth of the internet and communications technologies and now the seamless integration of wireless and mobile into the enterprise. The exponential growth in capability per unit cost still has a long way to run. Accordingly, The Royal Academy of Engineering has undertaken a study to consider the importance of the IT base for the UK economy; examine the present and projected state of UK IT-related business activity in a global context; identify potential opportunities for improvement; and make policy and other recommendations.
Social Network Driven Innovation
Ronald J Degan, International School of Management Paris
This paper explains how the increasingly popular social network driven ideation works for some companies, and how this can be expanded to encompass the complete crowdsourcing innovation process (beyond simple ideation). In a contemporary context, businesses that are unable to keep up with innovations are simply overrun by those who are more efficient at this. This results in the dilemma that confronts all innovating companies in the 21st century: while innovation is critical for survival of a company, internal R&D is an inefficient approach to innovation. As a result of this dilemma, today’s innovative companies generally conduct little or no basic research on their own. They mostly innovate using the research discoveries of others. Some of these companies promote ideation forums on social networks to gain ‘memes’ for innovative ideas. This first step in the crowdsourcing innovation process can be expanded to include all the remaining steps of the innovation process, up to marketing and selling the product or service, as these all originate from ‘crowdsourcing ideation’.
IMPACT: A Proposal for Realizing the Potential of University Research
Krisztina Holly, ITIF
University research has formed the foundation for many of the most significant U.S. technological advancements. However, many more ideas are left on the shelves and in the laboratories of academe, waiting to be discovered. Although thousands of university innovations have been transformed into startups and new products in the last three decades, there exists an even greater opportunity for economic and societal impact through ideas generated at major research universities. This white paper proposes an approach for the United States federal government to accelerate and make accessible the great potential from the breakthrough innovations arising from academic research. This pilot initiative would invest a small amount of federal funding to coax existing research results into the U.S. commercial marketplace through ten local demonstration sites. Funding would equal $2 million per year, per university, for five years. These local sites would nurture a culture of entrepreneurship within each university, create and enhance the innovation ecosystem around each university, and provide the resources necessary for researchers to effectively translate their ideas into societal impact. The three key components of each program would be: gap funding, community-building, and mentoring and education, though other aspects are welcome. The results would be measurable, reproducible, and scaleable. Ultimately, a successful demonstration program would lead to a Phase II where the program is institutionalized on a wider scale across the country, successfully accelerating existing efforts to turn university research into economic and societal impacts in the form of innovations that improve the lives of American citizens.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Innovation and Knowledge Linkages in Metropolitan Regions
Franz Toedling and Micheala Trippl, WUV
The authors of this paper examine whether or not the key deficiency of Vienna’s regional innovation system (RIS) in the past, i.e. fragmentation, is also a characteristic feature of new knowledge intensive sectors, which have emerged and grown in the last few years in the region. In the empirical part (section 3) they focus on two key industries in this respect, that is medical biotechnology and ICT, and investigate the nature of knowledge and innovation links of Viennese firms in those sectors.
Business Growth and Innovation: The Wider Impact of Rapidly-Growing Firms in UK City-Regions
Geoff Mason, Kate Bishop and Catherine Robinson, NESTA
Thriving businesses are vital to the UK’s economic recovery. Business people, investors and policymakers agree that they create jobs, wealth and wider prosperity. If government is to create the right conditions for businesses to grow, it must understand how this growth happens and what lies behind it. This report considers the wider benefits of growth businesses, their socioeconomic impact, and the relationship between growth and innovation. This has significant implications for the direction of economic policy. It suggests that focusing attention on growing businesses and promoting excellence, far from being an elitist policy, gives rise to widespread job creation and prosperity.
Not Invented Here? Innovation in Company Towns
Ajay Agrawal, Iain Cockburn, and Carlos Rosell, NBER
This paper examines variation in the concentration of inventive activity across 72 of North America’s most highly innovative locations. In 12 of these areas, innovation is particularly concentrated in a single, large firm; we refer to such locations as “company towns.” We find that inventors employed by large firms in these locations tend to draw disproportionately from their firm’s own prior inventions (as measured by citations to their own prior patents) relative to what would be expected given the underlying distribution of innovative activity across all inventing firms in a particular technology field. Furthermore, we find such inventors are more likely to build upon the same prior inventions year after year. However, smaller firms in company towns do not exhibit this myopic behavior; they draw upon prior inventions as broadly as their small-firm counterparts in more diverse locations. In addition, we find that inventions by large firms in company towns have less impact than those produced elsewhere, although the difference is modest, and that the impact is disproportionately appropriated by the inventing firms themselves. Finally, the geographic scope of impact realized by company town inventions is narrower, whether produced by large or small firms.
Statistics & Indicators
Talent, Technology and Tolerance in Canadian Regional Development
Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander, and Kevin Stolarick, Martin Prosperity Institute
This article examines the factors that shape economic development in Canadian regions. It employs path analysis and structural equation models to isolate the effects of technology, human capital and/or the creative class, universities, the diversity of service industries and openness to immigrants, minorities and gay and lesbian populations on regional income. It also examines the effects of several broad occupations groups – business and finance, management, science, arts and culture, education, and healthcare — on regional income. The findings indicate that both human capital and the creative class have a direct effect on regional income. Openness and tolerance also have a significant effect on regional development in Canada. Openness toward the gay and lesbian population has a direct effect on both human capital and the creative class, while tolerance toward immigrants and visible minorities is directly associated with higher regional incomes. The university has a relatively weak effect on regional incomes and on technology as well. Management, business and finance, and science occupations have a sizeable effect on regional income; arts and culture occupations have a significant effect on technology; health and education occupations have no effect on regional income.
Communities in Boom: Canada’s Top Entrepreneurial Cities
CFIB,
The 2009 rankings reveal that the majority of urban fringes outscore city cores. Select cities in Saskatchewan and Quebec show better than average performance in providing a good environment for small business development. Generally, areas outside of the city centre promote greater business growth through stronger entrepreneurial culture and sounder public policy for businesses. The CFIB entrepreneurial city rankings are unique to other existing economic rankings. Besides measuring core statistics such as business start-ups and self-employment, these rankings also incorporate direct measures of business climate—namely the actual perspectives of a community’s business owners.
Innovation and Establishments’ Productivity in Canada” Results from the 2005 Survey of Innovation
Pierre Therrien and Petr Hanel, CIRST
The OECD in collaboration with Eurostat launched a concerted effort in the early 90s to collect information on the whole innovation process at the firm level. This paper builds on the Canadian application of the model used for the OECD project. It presents a literature review dealing with the issue of innovation and productivity at the firm-level, including a summary of the main results of the OECD project with particular emphasis on Canadian results. The next section presents in more detail the proposed refinement of the econometric model, while Section 3 analyzes the results from the extended Canadian model. Finally, Section 4 concludes by providing policy implications of the results and by proposing alternatives for future research avenues.
Policy Digest
A Strategy for Amercian Innovation: Driving Towards Sustainable Growth and Quality Jobs
Executive Office of the President, National Economic Council Office fo Science and Technology Policy
Since taking office, President Obama has taken historic steps to lay the foundation for the innovation economy of the future. The Obama Innovation Strategy builds on well over $100 billion of Recovery Act funds that support innovation, additional support for education, infrastructure and others in the Recovery Act and the President’s Budget, and novel regulatory and executive order initiatives. It seeks to harness the inherent ingenuity of the American people and a dynamic private sector to ensure that the next expansion is more solid, broad-based, and beneficial than previous ones. It focuses on critical areas where sensible, balanced government policies can lay the foundation for innovation that leads to quality jobs and shared prosperity. The white paper has three parts:
1. Invest in the Building Blocks of American Innovation
It is important to ensure that the economy is given all the necessary tools for successful innovation, from investments in research and development to the human, physical, and technological capital needed to perform that research and transfer those innovations.
- Restore American leadership in fundamental research. President Obama implemented the largest increase in basic R&D in history, which will lay the foundation for new discoveries and new technologies that will improve our lives and create the industries of the future;
- Educate the next generation with 21st century knowledge and skills while creating a world-class workforce. President Obama has proposed initiatives to dramatically improve teaching and learning in K-12 education, expand access to higher education and training, and promote student achievement and careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields;
- Build a leading physical infrastructure. Through the Recovery Act, the President has committed to a historic investment in our nation’s roads, bridges, transit, and air transportation networks to connect our people and our businesses;
- Develop an advanced information technology ecosystem. For America to lead the world in the technologies of the future, President Obama believes that all Americans must have affordable 21st century access to the Internet.
2. Promote Competitive Markets that Spur Productive Entrepreneurship
It is imperative to create a national environment ripe for entrepreneurship and risk taking that allows U.S. companies to be internationally competitive in a global exchange of ideas and innovation. Through competitive markets, innovations diffuse and scale appropriately across industries and globally.
- Promote American exports. Exports will play an increasingly critical role in the future of the American economy, and the President’s plans will ensure fair and open markets for American producers;
- Support open capital markets that allocate resources to the most promising ideas. Open capital markets are one of the greatest strengths of the American economy, and the President is committed to making sure these markets work.
- Encourage high-growth and innovation-based entrepreneurship. The Obama Administration believes it is essential that entrepreneurs continue to create new and vibrant businesses that lead to new jobs and economic growth;
- Improve public sector innovation and support community innovation. Innovation must occur within all levels of society, including the government itself. The Obama Administration supports the broad adoption of community innovations that work and is committed to making government perform better and more efficiently, including by working more openly.
3. Catalyze Breathroughs for National Priorities
There are certain sectors of exceptional national importance where the market is unlikely to produce the desirable outcomes on its own. These include developing alternative energy sources, reducing costs and improving lives with health IT, and manufacturing advanced vehicles. In these industries where markets may fail on their own, government can be part of the solution.
- Unleash a clean energy revolution. Historic investments in smart grid, energy efficiency, and renewable technologies like wind, solar, and biofuels will help unleash a wave of ingenuity and progress that creates jobs, grows our economy, and ends dependence on oil;
- Support advanced vehicle technologies. Record battery grants announced last month are part of a concerted effort to place the U.S. on the cutting edge of advanced vehicle technology, from electric cars to biofuels to advanced combustion;
- Drive innovations in health care technology. The President’s health IT initiative is designed to drive technological innovation that will help prevent medical errors, improve health care quality, reduce costs, and cement U.S. leadership of this emerging industry;
- Harness science and technology to address the “grand challenges” of the 21st century. The President’s commitment to science and technology will allow the United States to set and meet ambitious goals, such as educational software that is as effective as a personal tutor and smart anti-cancer therapeutics that deliver drugs only to tumor cells.
Events
World Class Clusters: An International Innovation Policy
Sophia Antipolis, Turkey, 5-6 November, 2009
Conference themes explore policy thinking in France, Europe and foreign countries, how to cooperate, the objectives of collaborations for innovation, and presentations from the European Cluster Alliance Project and a European Cluster Observatory roundtable.
The Summit on Transforming Service Jobs
Toronto, 16 November, 2009
Please join Mayor David Miller, City of Toronto and Richard Florida, Director, Martin Prosperity Institute, at a summit to explore the challenges and opportunities for workers in our service economy. Attend this summit to learn more about important trends in our workforce and jobs in the creative age, particularly with respect to service occupations. Hear from leaders in business, academia, and organized labour. Participate in the discussion on how we can develop a service economy agenda with leading organizations from the Toronto region.
Designing Transit Cities Symposium 
Toronto, 19-20 November, 2009
The Designing Transit Cities Symposium is a two-day event aimed at exploring issues of transit development and other related questions with experts from successful international transit-oriented cities. You will hear from experts from Paris, Madrid, Zurich, Portland and San Francisco who have a strong track record in building cities where transit supports good development and vice versa. Out-of-town experts Paul Goldberger, Robert Cervero and Mariia Zimmerman, as well as local politicians designers and transit experts, including Mayor David Miller, TTC Chair Councillor Adam Giambrone and Paul Bedford, Metrolinx Board Member and Former City of Toronto Chief Planner, grapple with these important city design issues in a series of panel discussions, presentations and workshops.
8th Annual Incubator Conference & Award: Best Practices in Science-Based Incubation
Stockholm, Sweden, 19-20 November, 2009
The program committee under chairmanship of Mikael Hult from Innovationsbron, Sweden has constructed an inspiring program: a well-balanced mix of international recognized experts, upcoming talent and unknown jewels in the field of business incubation. This year’s conference will be chaired by Peter Harman from UKBI and will have appearances from amongst others Dinah Adkins, NBIA, USA, Wang Rong, Shanghai Technology Business Incubation Association, China, Richard White, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, R.M.P. Jawahar, ISBA, India and Heinz Fiedler, SPICE group, Germany. A special appearance this year will be made by Jan-Eric Sundgren, senior vice president of Volvo. The conference has speakers from four continents and more than 20 countries.
Entrepreneurship and Growth: The Role of Policy Reforms
Washington, DC, 19-20 November, 2009
This conference will address several topics such as the causal effects of institutional, regulatory, and fiscal reforms on entrepreneurial activity; the effects of financial, operational, and management constraints on entrepreneurship and policies that help alleviate these constraints; and the role of entrepreneurship in economic growth and development.
InnoWest 2009: How Canada Can Prosper in the Global Innovation System
Edmonton, 24-25 November, 2009
Innovation is the main driver of economic growth around the world. In western Canada, innovation has created value added opportunities both in the resource sector and by the creation of new high technology enterprises. Increasing globalization has created opportunities and threats for western Canadian based companies. The financial and economic crisis has created insecurity and restructuring. At the same time, environmental issues are becoming more pressing, and innovations will be needed to solve them. But history shows that major innovations often get their start in times of turmoil. This conference will address a number of questions including how the western Canadian economy looks from a global perspective; how collaboration may create wealth; how to make industries in the area more sustainable; how other jurisdictions are addressing these challenges; and what role the government should play in stimulating innovation and sustainability.
Global Recession: Regional Impacts on Housing, Jobs, Health and Wellbeing: Call for Papers
London, UK, 27 November, 2009
In recent years, issues of health and well being have come to the fore in much public debate and policymaking. These related topics appear across a number of agendas and are significant elements in employment, housing, social inclusion, and social policy fields as well as under their own strategic and delivery areas. Not only do health, health service delivery, deprivation, happiness, incomes and wealth vary across countries and national boundaries, but also there are often strong regional and indeed local and neighbourhood differences. Although there is an established and well developed research landscape in these areas, they are often bound within particular disciplines so that other related interests are unaware of their existence and relevance to their own needs. As the global economy has entered a period of prolonged recession and uncertainty, it is timely to ask questions about the implications for people’s lives and livelihoods. The Regional Studies Association Winter Conference 2009 on Health, Housing, Jobs and Well being presents an opportunity to discuss and debate these issues, to establish the research requirements and to address the concerns of practitioners and policymakers. The conference is keen to attract papers and sessions which address a broad active research and policy agenda, including contributions from any discipline which can offer insights at local and regional levels.
Competitive Cities: 10 Years Later – Is the GTA Ready to Compete?
Toronto, 20 November, 2009
In 1999, the Canadian Urban Institute held a conference to find out what makes a city region competitive. Ten years later, we are re-visiting the topic to find out what has been achieved in the past decade, identify what still needs to be done, and how the notion of a “competitive city region” fares in the current climate. Are companies as connected as they need to be to the brain power available in our universities and colleges? Is the GTA reaching its potential as a competitive force in the global economy? Can the innovation agenda be usefully expanded to the broader marketplace to better utilize community college resources? How could the GTA benefit from the approach taken in the UK?
Stimulating Recovery: The Role of Innovation Management
New York, 6-9 December, 2009
Organized 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.
CALL FOR PAPERS – Innovation, Knowledge and Entrepreneurship: DRUID-DIME Academy Winter Conference
Aalborg, Denmark, 21-23 January, 2010
The conference is open for all PhD students working within the broad field of economics and management of innovation and organizational change. We invite papers aiming at enhancing our understanding of the dynamics of technological, structural and institutional change at the level of firms, industries, regions and nations. DRUID is the node for an open international network – new partners are always of interest (we of course encourage DRUID Academy PhD students and students connected to the ETIC PhD program to submit an abstract as well). Do not hesitate to apply even if you have not been in contact with DRUID previously.
Pecs, Hungary, 24-26 May, 2010
An increasingly complex array of actors is involved in today‟s regional development agendas. They range from private firms and labour organizations to government and non-government institutions. Despite the growing awareness in the public and academic domains of the multi-actor nature of regional development, we still often struggle to fully comprehend the mutually interactive strategies and practices which cut across regions and countries. In light of recent upheavals in the global economic and financial system, such an understanding will be critical to future studies of regional development. Indeed this interest in actors, institutions and organizations in regional development needs to be properly grounded in the wider contexts of global change in economic imperatives, transnational working and cooperation and environmental concerns. To some regions, these contexts provide favourable and timely frameworks for action and initiatives. Other regions may find these contexts increasingly challenging and threatening. Taken together, understanding better these broader contexts can provide important insights into regional development potential, planning and practices and establish the agenda for research and policy. We welcome papers from all – academics, students and those working in policy and practice. The event is inclusive and offers major networking opportunities for scholars in our field.
CALL FOR PAPERS – Opening Up Innovation: Strategy, Organization and Innovation
London, 16-18 June, 2010
The DRUID Summer Conference 2010 intends to explore new theoretical, empirical and methodological advances in industrial dynamics, contributing novel insights and stimulating a lively debate about how economic systems and organizations evolve. The conference will include an exciting programme of plenary debates where internationally leading scholars take stands on contemporary issues within the overall conference theme. Both senior and junior scholars are invited to participate and contribute to the conference with a paper.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.