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
12th Annual ISRN Conference Registration Open
The 12th and Final Annual ISRN National Conference takes place at the Renaissance Toronto Hotel Downtown from Wednesday, May 5th to Friday, May 7th
Canada and California Launch Science and Technology Initiatives Worth $1 Million
The Minister of International Trade, recently announced 15 research initiatives, worth a total of $1 million, under the Canada-California Strategic Innovation Partnership (CCSIP), an important element of Canada’s science and technology agenda. Of the 15 initiatives, nine are collaborative events and six are research and development projects. They involve 21 Canadian universities in partnership with eight University of California campuses. The universities are contributing $1 million, with half coming from Canadian institutions and the other half from Californian institutions. The 15 projects were selected from 45 submissions in a first round of proposals.
Energy Hubs and Regionalism = A New VIsion for Innovation and Jobs
Recently, the Obama administration announced that no less than seven federal agencies were issuing a combined funding opportunity announcement of up to $130 million over five years to turn one of the Department of Energy’s energy innovation hubs into a true regional innovation center. Centered on the second of DOE’s three energy research hubs, the new Energy Regional Innovation Cluster (E-RIC) initiative is noteworthy because it shows the administration moving to supplement a narrower research and technology program (focused on energy efficient building design) with a multi-agency array of offerings intended to broaden the effort and embed it in the powerful currents of regional innovation networks. In that fashion, the $22 to 25 million a year hub effort to develop and commercialize new building efficiency technologies will now be leveraged and better connected because it will be complemented by additional money from the Economic Development Administration, the Department of Commerce’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership, the Small Business Administration, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Labor, and Department of Education–all aimed at accelerating new technologies’ progress into the private economy.
Editor's Pick
New Cluster Concepts Activites in Creative Industries
European Commission Enterprise & Industry Directorate General
A fast growing global market for unique experiences has made creative industry a large and growing sector. The digital technology and global networks have made the creative industries one of the fastest growing sectors in the world with annual growth rates between 5 and 20%.The increase significance of creative industries has led a number of regions and countries to design policy initiatives for the creative industry. And it has raised the need for a better understanding of the functioning of creative industries and its importance for other industries and for the total economy. The study examines the perception and definitions of the creative industries. It compares different methods and different data using industrial and occupational statistics, and it illustrates the differences with employment data for the area of Greater Copenhagen as well as international clusters. The international data used is from Monitor Group. Based on the comparison, recommendations are made on how to go forward with mapping creative clusters. The study also discusses international benchmarking of creative industries along with cluster initiative for creative industries. Finally, it discusses cross boarder collaboration between creative industries and the importance of user-driven innovation in the creative industries.
Innovation Policy
Intellectual Property in the 21st Century
Ruth M. Corbin, Conference Board of Canada
This report highlights the potential of intellectual property to contribute significantly to Canada’s global competitiveness. The nurturing and optimization of intellectual property require strategic leadership and sound governance. The report looks at Canada’s intellectual property rights within the context of globalization and the digital age. The report reviews the impact of the Internet on patents, trademarks, copyright, and trade secrets. The report has made specific recommendations within this context. For example, ratification of the World Intellectual Property Organization Internet Treaties will bring Canada in line with its major trading partners, while still permitting implementation choices that address legitimate stakeholder concerns. The report also observes that stronger rights are not necessarily more effective in achieving desirable economic outcomes. It recommends that balance sought in establishing the appropriate level of intellectual property rights should not be between creators and users but rather between the incentive to create and the incentive to diffuse.
High Speeds, High Costs, Hidden Benefits: A Broader Perspective on High-Speed Rail
The Martin Prosperity Institute
Opponents of high-speed rail have a common thread in their reasoning. Trains are fast and enjoyable to ride, they say, but when scrutinized with rigorous cost-benefit analysis their high cost simply cannot be justified. This type of analysis typically considers benefits like reduced travel times, reduced congestion for those who drive and fly, and reduced pollution emissions, weighing them against the considerable construction and operating costs of high-speed systems. Thus the benefits of high-speed rail are usually conceived as lowering costs and reducing problems (gridlock, pollution, travel time) rather than expanding growth.This latest white paper argues that a better approach to assessing transportation investments ought to consider the economy-expanding effects of high-speed rail. Economic history is replete with evidence of forward-thinking infrastructure investments that could not be justified by the evaluation tools of their time but ultimately proved transformative to the economic system. The Trans-Canada railway, the U.S. Interstate Highway System, and ARPANET (precursor to the Internet) all fall into this category. The new paper argues that high-speed rail infrastructure has the potential to have the same sort of transformative effect.
The Automobile Industry in and Beyond the Crisis
David Haugh, Annabelle Mourougane, and Olivier Chatal, OECD
This paper considers the role of the automobile industry in the current cycle. It shows that the industry is economically important and its cycle is intertwined with business cycles. After casting some light on the sources of the collapse in car sales at the start of the crisis, the policy measures, in particular car scrapping programmes, put in place to support the automobile industry are discussed. The paper also derives short and medium term projections of car sales. While a rebound in car sales is likely in North America, Japan and the United Kingdom, car sales in Germany have been pushed significantly above trend and may weaken going forward. Over the medium term, in mature markets such as Europe and North America, trend sales are likely to remain stagnant. By contrast, rapid increases are foreseen in China and to a lesser extent in India. Medium-term projections suggest that capacity exceeds trend sales by around 20% in the five largest Western European markets considered as a whole. Without an adjustment in capacity, these countries would need to ensure an ongoing strong export performance. By contrast, automakers in the NAFTA area would need to halt their decline in domestic market share or to rely increasingly on exports in order to avoid excess capacity. In order to maintain their high levels of capacity utilisation, Korean and Japanese manufacturers will need to keep up their strong export performance.
The Financing of R&D and Innovation
Bronwyn Hall and Josh Lerner, UNU-MERIT
This paper surveys the “funding gap” for investment in innovation. The focus is on financial market reasons for underinvestment that exist even when externality-induced underinvestment is absent. The authors conclude that while small and new innovative firms experience high costs of capital that are only partly mitigated by the presence of venture capital, the evidence for high costs of R&D capital for large firms is mixed. Nevertheless, large established firms do appear to prefer internal funds for financing such investments and they manage their cash flow to ensure this. Evidence shows that there are limits to venture capital as a solution to the funding gap, especially in countries where public equity markets for VC exit are not highly developed.
INNO-Policy Trend Chart Innovation Progress Report – Japan
European Commission
Japan is a country with a strong innovation climate, apportioning over 3.6% of GDP to R&D – the highest amongst the G7. At a macro level, Japan tends to have a lead on the European Union overall, but is behind many of Europe’s leading innovative countries. Japanese strengths lie mostly in business R&D expenditures, number of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patents, number of researchers, and public-private co-publications. Japan’s performance lags in areas such as knowledge intensive services (KIS) exports, and KIS employment. Overall, the EU is increasingly catching up with Japan’s performance. This report is divided in three parts: main trends and challenges in the national innovation system, public support to innovation, innovation policy and competitiveness: an appraisal.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Tetsuya Shimomura and Tadashi Matsumoto, OECD
Globalization and subsequent competition among cities have triggered a profound change in the mode of the governance of cities. It is often described as a shift from a managerial mode of governance, which had been primarily concerned with provision of social welfare services and control of private activities, to that of entrepreneurialism, strongly characterised by a pro-economic growth strategic approach. Subsequently, attractiveness has been increasingly regarded as a key factor for urban policies, since attractive cities are competitive and able to attract newly-emerging businesses and highly-skilled workforces that are the driving force in the global economy. Today, enhancing urban attractiveness is high on the agenda of urban policy in many OECD countries. Many cities in OECD countries have introduced area-based institutional mechanisms to enhance physical urban environment, recognizing the importance of city’s attractiveness. Although the past OECD works have identified physical urban environment as one of the key factors for city’s attractiveness, how to achieve better physical urban environment has not been thoroughly explored. Against this backdrop, this paper studies policy framework in order to enhance physical urban environment. After analyzing the characteristics of physical urban environment and institutional arrangements to address the barriers to its enhancement, the paper then highlights recent innovative area-based partnerships with two case studies, in order to examine key factors for successful institutional arrangements.
Statistics & Indicators
Measuring Creativity: The Book
European Commission Education & Training
The International Conference “Can creativity be measured?” offered an overview of the different ways of measuring creativity at national, regional and individual levels. As a first step towards tackling this challenge, this report looks at all these perspectives and provides a wide analysis of measuring specific aspects related to creativity.
State Regression during the Recession – Interactive Map
Portfolio.com
This interactive map provides a glimpse into the economic indicators of each state’s economy over the past year. The map ranks and compares states impacted by the recession showing job growth, wage growth, home value growth, construction growth and unemployment.
Policy Digest
Restoring Prosperity: Transforming Ohio’s Communities for the Next Economy
The Brookings Institution and the Greater Ohio Policy Center
Ohio, like most other states in the country and particularly its neighbors in the Great Lakes region, is still reeling from the “Great Recession.” This economic crisis, the worst in a half century, has devastated economies across the globe. While economists have declared that the recession has abated, it will be a long time before the businesses, households, and government treasuries across the country, and specifically in the state of Ohio, shake off the effects. And when the recession’s grip finally breaks, what will Ohio’s economy and landscape look like? This report lays out some of the specific policy options that will help Ohioans restore the prosperity that the state enjoyed for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. The Restoring Prosperity agenda that will use the strengths of Ohio’s metropolitan regions to solidify Ohio’s place in the next economy has three elements: 1) Build on next economy assets in metropolitan areas; 2) Catalyze transformative changes in governance to lower costs and boost competitiveness; and 3) Engage and lead the federal government.
1. Build on assets in metropolitan areas
There are four key metropolitan assets that should continue to drive Ohio’s metropolitan investment
agenda: innovation, human capital, infrastructure, and quality places.
- Innovation: Ohio is a state where private sector innovation has flourished but currently ranks in the bottom six states on several measures of entrepreneurship. This agenda plans to reenergize Ohio’s entrepreneurial culture by recommending the preservation of Third Frontier funding; finding creative sources of funding for innovation-based economic development; expand the state’s advanced manufacturing network; and by creating micro-investment funds.
- Human capital: Ohio’s firms, whether engaged in manufacturing products for export or those oriented to new energy sources, cannot compete and thrive unless they have a well-prepared workforce, and of course Ohio’s workers cannot thrive unless they have the skills for well-paying jobs, with advancement
opportunities, in secure and growing industries. This report urges Ohio to support workforce intermediaries across the state and raise the number of Ohioans earning non-degree workforce certificates. - Infrastructure: is an important part of increasing the state’s ability to transition to the next economy, as the state needs new transportation networks and multimodal freight facilities to get state-manufactured goods to international markets. While the state has made some promising moves in the direction of a wider range of transportation infrastructure, the state must go still further and create a new transportation strategy that enables more transportation options and positions the state for a low-carbon future, through the following steps: use “fix it first” as a central principle guiding transportation investment decisions; analyze and track ODOT investments; and create a state-wide sustainability challenge competition.
- Quality places: the fourth driver of prosperity, are where all the other prosperity drivers intersect and leverage each other. Ohio’s quality places legacy presents a paradox that is found throughout older industrial cities of the Northeast and Midwest: These places have physical amenities like waterfronts and a mature parks system, interesting architecture, historic buildings, pedestrian-scale neighborhoods, and institutions like universities, colleges, museums, and medical centers. But at the same time, they suffer from decades of depopulation, job loss, and underinvestment, and their current physical footprints and land use patterns do not fit their current levels of population and economic activity. To grapple with the challenge of its shrinking cities, this report directs Ohio to:pass a legislative package of foreclosure prevention and corrective action bills; expand Ohio’s land bank statute to apply to all the state’s counties to help places address excess vacant land; establish a targeted neighbourhood revitalization strategy program; and modernize Ohio’s planning statutes.
2. Catalyze transformative changes in governance
The second element of the Restoring Prosperity agenda is a significant change in the structure of government and governance in Ohio. Because of the recession, Ohio’s fiscal difficulties at the state and local level are severe, inescapable, and worsening. As a result, there is not enough lowhanging fruit left to pluck on the spending and revenue side to close the budget gaps that Ohio and its municipalities will face for the next biennium and likely beyond. In order to continue to make strategic investments and maintain decent levels of service provision, Ohio will have to do more to encourage money-saving or efficiency-enhancing consolidation and collaboration between local governments, including school districts. Ohio needs to move down the path of reforms that will either save money or yield better results for money spent, through consolidations where appropriate; much more aggressive efforts to encourage local governments to collaborate and share services
across the board; and smarter, sharper alignments of the state’s own policies and programs to make the most of scarce state resources.
- Shift more K-12 dollars to classrooms: Ohio ranks 47th in the nation in the share of elementary and secondary education spending that goes to instruction and 9th in the share that goes to administration. More of this money should be funnelled into the classroom.
- Catalyze local government collaboration: Ohio is one of the most fragmented states with respect to local governments. This creates costs and duplications that can be avoided.
- Break up program silos: to align and maximize state investment.
3. Engage and lead the federal government
One state cannot overcome the impact of a global recession entirely on its own. Restoring prosperity in Ohio will require a purposeful alignment of federal and state priorities, policies, and practices. Ohio must be strategic in thinking about forthcoming federal investments in clean energy or support for manufacturing, for example,
and it should take an even bolder approach towards the federal government’s flow of funds.
- Position itself to compete: for these funds, showing a united front and a clear vision aligned with federal goals. Places that have organized initiatives and can deliver smart proposals will likely attract federal interest and investment.
- Take a leadership role: with the federal government, advising its efforts and rallying similarly situated states and communities to shape the direction of federal policy.
Events
Cultural Mapping and Cultural Planning: Making the Connection
Toronto, 2-3 March, 2010
Join cultural planning practitioners from across Ontario for an informative workshop on cultural planning and mapping. Presentations on Creative City Network of Canada’s cultural planning and mapping toolkits, panel discussions from those in the field and a facilitated discussion on what’s next will give you the knowledge and connections to move the cultural planning agenda forward in your community. This facilitated discussion will focus on potential policy links between cultural mapping and cultural planning. Knowledge generated from this session will be incorporated into Municipal Cultural Planning Incorporated’s forthcoming Municipal Cultural Mapping guidebook.
9th Annual Re$earch Money Conference: Industrial R&D: Is Canada Really Lagging?
Ottawa, 25 March, 2010
Corporate R&D is being transformed. The large industrial research lab is no longer the norm. Multinational firms now globally distribute their R&D and collaborate with partners in public and private sector institutions. Does the “new normal” offer opportunities to a country like Canada? Speakers and panellists include H. Douglas Barber Co-founder and Former CEO, Gennum Corp and Distinguished Professor in Residence, McMaster University, Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research, Fred Gault Professorial Fellow, United Nations University MERIT, Raymond Leduc Director, Bromont Manufacturing, IBM Canada, David Miller Senior VP, The Woodbridge Group.
A Strategic Blueprint for New York City’s Future 
Toronto, 26 March, 2010
This seminar presented by the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance at the Munk Centre for International Studies and the Neptis Foundation features Amanda M Burden, the Chair of the New York City Planning Commission and Director of the Department of CIty Planning who will speak about strategic planning in New York City. Since her appointment by Mayor Bloomberg in 2002, Commissioner Burden has spearheaded the largest planning effort in the city since 1961, setting the stage for sustainable development, reclaiming New York’s waterfront, designing new parkland and public spaces such as the High Line and promoting great architecture and urban design in all five boroughs. Seating is limited for this even so please register by March 10th to reserve your place.
ORION Summit 2010: From Here to the Future – At an Innovation Crossroads
Toronto, 12-13 April, 2010
ORION Summit 2010 will be a celebration of achievements, bringing together leading researchers, scientists, educators and innovators to map out what researchers and educators will be able to do in the future, with cutting-edge advanced and collaborative technologies and new and exciting applications and services that will help place Ontario at the global vanguard of the innovation and knowledge-based economy. Attend the Summit for informative and inspiring keynote speakers and breakout sessions on topics ranging from the latest collaborative tools for research and education, health research, digital media, college/industry collaboration, and more.
The Organization, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research
Torino, Italy, 23-24 April, 2010
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 workshop does not have a narrow focus; it aims to include papers form the various streams of research developed in recent years in and around the area of public and private scientific research. To submit a contribution and for further information contact: Aldo Geuna (aldo.geuna@unito.it)
and Francesco Quatraro (brick@carloalberto.org).
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.
BioEnergy Conference & Exhibition 2010
Prince George, BC, 8-10 June, 2010
The International BioEnergy Conference and Exhibition is the Canadian leader in the global dialogue on bioenergy. Our sponsors, speakers, exhibitors and delegates are key influencers and opinion shapers from around the world on the new technologies and processes that will bring about a global change in the way we perceive and use energy. With the addition of the BC Bioenergy Network as Conference Co-Host, the tradition of leadership and excellence will continue in 2010. We are also happy to announce that the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade will once again co-host the 2nd International Partnerships Forum and Business to Business Meetings. And 2010 will also mark the introduction of a parallel conference on Emerging Clean Technologies.
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.
Aalborg, Denmark, 21-24 June, 2010
Schumpeter 2010 serves as an opportunity for both established scholars and young researchers to present research that has a Schumpeterian perspective. The major topic of the conference is “Innovation, Organisation, Sustainability and Crises”. But the conference more generally embraces micro-studies of the innovation, routine and selection as well as studies of the macro-problems of Schumpeterian growth and development as a process of “creative destruction”. The broad range of issues implies that both economists, business economists, and other social scientists can contribute to the conference and that evidence may be provided by statistical and historical methods as well as other methods.
Experience the Creative Economy
Toronto, 22-24 June, 2010
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.
CALL FOR PAPERS – Partnerships in S&T Policy Research
Waterville Valley, NH, 8-13 August, 2010
The 2010 Gordon Conference on Science and Technology Policy will focus on a wide range of research at the intersection of science, technology, policy and society. The 2010 Conference will focus in particular on further developing partnerships between North American and European researchers. Invited speakers represent a variety of scientific disciplines in the policy sciences, social and natural sciences as well as the humanities. The Conference will bring together a collection of investigators who are at the forefront of their field, and will provide opportunities for junior scientists and graduate students to present their work in poster format and exchange ideas with leaders in the field. The collegial atmosphere of this Conference, with programmed discussion sessions as well as opportunities for informal gatherings in the afternoons and evenings, provides an avenue for scholars from different disciplines to brainstorm and promotes cross-disciplinary collaborations in the various research areas represented.
Triple Helix in the Development of Cities of Knowledge, Expanding Communities and Connecting Regions
Madrid, Spain, 20-22 Oct, 2010
Innovation is understood as a resultant of a complex and dynamic process related to interactions between University, Industry and Government, in a spiral of endless transitions. The Triple Helix approach, developed by Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff, is based on the perspective of University as a leader of the relationship with Industry and Government, to generate new knowledge, innovation and economic development. The main theme of our conference is “Triple Helix in the Development of Cities of Knowledge, Expanding Communities and Connecting Regions”.
Entrepreneurship and Community: 26th Annual CCSBE Conference
Calgary, 28-30 October, 2010
The theme this year is Entrepreneurship and Community. We are seeking to explore the multifaceted impact entrepreneurs and small businesses have on their communities through their new ventures, business and community outreach. There is growing recognition by policy makers, members of society, business leaders and youth, that creative approaches are needed to address environmental, economic, and societal issues. The conference program highlights the research, educational methods, and community practices pertaining to venture sustainability and social entrepreneurship. In support of the theme we have attracted an array of plenary and guest speakers, and developed workshops which will contribute to the dialogue.
Making Innovation Work for Society: Linking, Leveraging and Learning GLOBELICS 8th Annual Conference
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1-3 November, 2010
Global Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation, and Competence Building Systems (GLOBELICS) is an international network of scholars who apply the concept of “learning, innovation, and competence building system” (LICS) as their framework and are dedicated to the strengthening of LICS in developing countries, emerging economies and societies in transition. The research aims at locating unique systemic features as well as generic good practices to enlighten policy making relating to innovation, competence building, international competitiveness, regional development, labour market and human capital development. In an increasingly global and knowledge‐based competition, management strategies need to be based upon an understanding of these framework conditions and the public policies which seek to regulate the environment.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.