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
Canadian Cities Join Forces to Attract Tech Investors
The Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation has banded together with economic development groups in 10 other major Canadian cities to lure more international technology investment to Canada. The group, calling itself the C-11, has launched the web-site ConsiderCanada.com,which aims to promote successful investments in technology throughout Canada’s largest cities and to give international businesses reasons to consider Canadian locations for their future investments. The cities involved are Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, the Waterloo Region, Halifax and Saskatoon.
Windsor and Stratford, Ontario are Among the Most Intelligent Communities
The Intelligent Community Forum named its 2011 Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the Year today at a luncheon ceremony at the Pacific Telecommunications Council’s annual conference in Honolulu. The ICF’s Top Seven are communities that provide a model of economic and social development in the 21st Century using information and communications technology to power growth, address social challenges and preserve and promote culture. The Top Seven announcement is the second stage of ICF’s annual Intelligent Community of the Year awards cycle.
Editor's Pick
The Brookings Institution
The best way to create more jobs in a state is to grow them at home, rather than poach them from elsewhere: Some 95 percent of all job gains in a year in an average state come from the expansion of existing businesses or the birth of new establishments. However, the usual recipe of tax credits, R&D, training programs, and physical infrastructure is not sufficient, by itself, to spur such “organic” job creation. States also need to cultivate their industry clusters—geographic concentrations of interconnected firms and supporting organizations. Properly designed, cluster strategies are a low-cost way to stimulate innovation, new-firm start-ups, and job creation by helping to link and align the many factors that influence firm and regional growth.
Innovation Policy
United Nations
This policy-oriented report examines a number of issues relating to the creative economy and its development dimension.It highlights the emerging creative economy and its rapid ascent as a component of economic growth, employment, trade and innovation in most advanced economies. The report also provides empirical evidence that the creative industries are among the most dynamic emerging sectors in world trade.
Performance-based Funding for Public Research in Tertiary Education Institutions
OECD
Governments are seeking to channel research funds into universities and other institutions in ways that support high-quality research in strategically important areas and bolster effective knowledge diffusion. These issues of steering and funding have even more relevance in light of the current financial crisis and economic downturn which have seen severe fiscal pressures fall on many countries.This publication presents a collection of papers presented at an OECD workshop on performance-based funding of public research in tertiary education institutions. It takes stock of current thinking and practice around performance-based funding of public research in tertiary education institutions, as a tool to help governments meet their research goals. These funding models are essentially systems of ex-post evaluation of research outputs and outcomes from universities and other tertiary institutions. Their results are used to inform government decisions about how much and which institutions to fund
Building a Long-Term National Strategy on Growth Through Innovation
The Brookings Institution
On January 12, the Brookings Institution gathered the CEOs of leading U.S. businesses for a day-long series of panels addressing innovation in key business sectors, including information technology, green technology, defense and manufacturing. The program also included state and federal budget experts who discussed ways to reduce the budget deficit without strangling the economic recovery. Brookings experts lead the discussions to draw out ideas to advise policymakers on strategies for fostering growth and innovation. The discussions, posted on the conference website, revolved around themes such as the impact of the shift to a knowledge economy, the potential of green energy and technology, the evolution of manufacturing and exports, governance issues, and the policy road ahead.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
2010: A Year of Place-Based Politics?
Willy Staley, The Next American City
This article looks back at the last year to track progress and developments in American place-based policy. It particularly looks at the evolution of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and how it’s way of working with federal agencies and cities has fundamentally changed. It also comments on the the urban implications of the results of the recent Census and of thechanged political landscape of federal politics in the US following the midterm elections.
Statistics & Indicators
2010 State Science and Technology Index
The Milken Institute
With competition rising from abroad and federal budget allocations under fire, states are facing increasing pressure to nurture their own innovation assets in order grow and sustain diverse economies for the future. Some states, including top-ranked Massachusetts, have successfully built and leveraged their science and technology resources through investment and long-term planning. These top-ranked states have successfully invested in and are leveraging the tech and science assets that are the engines 21st century economic growth. The Index has tracked and evaluated states’ tech and science capabilities and their ability to convert them into companies and high-paying jobs since 2002.
Policy Digest
Innovation and the State of the Union Address
Innovation and competitiveness were a key component of President Obama’s recent State of the Union Address (full text linked to the title above). Several organizations have responded to this, in some ways surprising, emphasis on stimulating the knowledge economy and regional innovation. Follow the links below to read reaction to the address.
SSTI Weekly Digest
President Barack Obama called for a renewed commitment to American innovation, education and infrastructure to restore the country’s competitive edge in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday. The administration’s “plan to win the future” includes stronger support for research and high-tech businesses in order to maintain leadership in a global economy dominated by technology-intensive industries. In order to encourage innovation, the president set the goal of providing high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of Americans in five years, preparing 100,000 STEM educators over the next ten years and producing 80 percent of the country’s electricity from clean energy sources by 2035. Other major proposals include a five-year spending freeze for many domestic programs, which could reduce the federal deficit by an estimated $400 billion over the next ten years, and an end to congressional earmarks [read more…]
Robert D. Atkinson, ITIF
The President is 100 percent right when he calls for investment in science, technology, education and energy innovation. The country that invests in innovation today will have jobs and wealth tomorrow. Other countries understand this and are investing billions to win the innovation race. We are kidding ourselves to think otherwise. We must decide right now if the Great Recession marks the end of the American century or a “Sputnik moment” that revives our innovative spirit and capability [read more…]
Mark Muro, The New Republic
Too often in recent American history the “innovation” agenda has felt like a specialized, glossy cant for good times—for Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Boston technologists, and Wired readers. In his State of the Union speech, President Obama changed that. Instead of settling for austerity-talk or “small ball,” Obama placed innovation at the center of his narrative, and promoted technology innovation (especially clean energy innovation) as the central imperative of national economic renewal.. But while he has emphasized the importance of invention in the past, he has never done it as explicitly and forcefully as he did last night before a prime time national TV audience in a year of tepid recovery, 9 percent unemployment, and fears of lost national mojo [read more…]
Ed Paisley and Sean Pool, Science Progress
President Obama’s second State of the Union address presented a comprehensive economic philosophy for the progressive movement in this century. The mantra of the conservative movement since Reagan popularized the now-defunct concept of trickle-down economics has been clearly stated and often repeated: tax cuts, less government. Ask anyone what forms the basis of the conservative economic philosophy and those four words will be among the first you will hear. But what is the correspondingly simple mantra for the progressive economic philosophy? That is a harder question to answer, even for progressives. But after last night’s address we now have a strong candidate: innovation and competitiveness. [read more…]
Events
Workshop on the Organization, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research
Torino, Italy, 18-19 February, 2011
Following the success of the three previous workshops held in Torino under the auspices of LEI & BRICK (University of Torino – Collegio Carlo Alberto) with the support of the DIME network of excellence, we are organising a new workshop in collaboration with the COST Action on “Science and Technology Research in a Knowledge-based Economy – STRIKE”. 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.
What Future for Cohesion Policy? An Academic and Policy Debate
Sava Hoteli Bled, Slovenia, 16-18 March, 2011
This conference, co-organized by DG Regio (European Commission, the Regional Studies Association adn the Government Office for Local Self-Government and Regional Policy, Slovenia will involve a number of invited plenary presentations, and workshop or other small group discussions.
TCI European Regional Cluster Conference: Inspiring Clusters in the Beginning of the New Decade
Tallinn, Estonia, 29-30 March, 2011
TCI European regional conference in 2011 will focus on how to improve the Cluster policies both on European, national and regional level and how to achieve excellence in cluster management. The conference will also provide a deeper insight into cluster development in Eastern and Central Europe being the first TCI conference in this region. In addition to the main programme of the conference, several parallel sessions will be organized based on Open Space Technology, where the participant can define the topics of their core interest and lead the discussion themselves. As an optional program visits to Estonian cluster initiatives will be organized for the interested particpants. The cluster intiatives, which can be visited are in the field of ICT, Forest and Wood, Wind Energy, Creative Industries and ECO Construction. In addition also cultural program focused on Tallinn as Culutral Capital of Europe 2011 will be available.
Regional Development and Policy – Challenges, Choices and Recipients 
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 17-20 April, 2011
The challenges for regional development are intensifying. Long-term factors shaping the prospects for cities and regions include the effects of climate change and new demands on energy, water and food systems. Cities also face significant demographic shifts. Rapid technological changes – captured in the notion of an emerging Knowledge Economy – will also affect cities and regions. Moreover, we are witnessing significant changes in international political economy – encapsulated by the term globaliation – but increasingly understood as incorporating the rise of new economic powers, such as the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and, above all, China). The immediate context for thinking about these questions in many parts of the world is the aftermath of a severe economic crisis and a new politics of austerity. Local, regional, national and international actors continue to search for new policy solutions at a time when traditional forms of governance are being tested and new forms of regional politics are emerging. In many parts of the world regional disparities are growing as more economic activity becomes concentrated in global city regions, posing questions about the future of cities and regions beyond the metropolis. In these austere times, some voices question the need for regional policy itself and public policy debates increasingly focus on these dilemmas.
CALL FOR PAPERS – Public Administration, Technology and Innovation
Tallinn, Estonia, 6-7 May, 2011
Technological developments of the last decades have brought the co-evolutionary linkages between technology and public sector institutions into the center of both economics and public administration research. Technologies can, arguably, make public administration more effective, efficient, transparent and more accountable; but they can also cause problems with privacy, sustainability, legality, and equality, to name just a few examples. Recent public sector austerity measures (and attempts at lean government in general) may thwart socio-political efforts to foster technological innovation; but they can at the same time lead to greater willingness of governments to adopt new technologies and management principles based, directly or indirectly, on technological innovations. The challenge to public administration research is not only to trace and understand these linkages, but to find working solutions to these apparent trade-offs, and even to investigate the nature and permutations of the techno-administrative interface generally. We are inviting papers dealing with theoretical or empirical topics looking at either side of the co-evolution perspective of technological and institutional development; the role of public administration in technological progress and innovation; and the role of technology and innovation in the trajectories of public administration.
Woods Hole, MA, 15-18 May, 2011
Applications are sought from teachers and researchers who are interested in moving beyond their current disciplinary and academic boundaries to explore concepts and practices that help us work in the arena bordered on one side by critical interpretation of the directions taken by scientific and technological research and application and on the other side by organizing social movements so as to influence those directions. Participants are encouraged, but not required, to submit a manuscript or sketch related to the workshop topic that would be read by others before the workshop and be subject to focused discussion during the workshop. There is also room for participants to develop–either before or during the workshop–activities or interactive presentations to engage the other participants.
ICIM 2011: International Conference on Innovation and Management
Tokyo, Japan, 25-27 May, 2011
The International Conference on Innovation and Management aims to bring together academic scientists, leading engineers, industry researchers and scholar students to exchange and share their experiences and research results about all aspects of Innovation and Management, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted.
Copenhagen, Denmark, 15-17 June, 2011
DRUID 2011 intends to map theoretical, empirical and methodological advances, contribute with novel insights and stimulate a lively debate about how technologies, economic systems and organizations evolve and co-evolve. The conference will include targeted plenary debates where internationally merited scholars take stands on contemporary issues within the overall conference theme.
CALL FOR PAPERS – Regional Studies Association – Third Global Conference on Economic Geography
Seoul, Korea, 28 June – July 2, 2011
In the wake of the economic downturn of 2007-, the debate about the causes of the crisis and recession has focused upon the unbalanced nature of its economic models and geographies. Explanations have been concerned with the imbalances in international trade and currency flows, sectoral structures between especially financial and other services and manufacturing, the relative sizes and roles of the public and private sectors, the composition of demand between consumption and production as well as its domestic or external orientation, and its socially and spatially uneven geographies. Following this diagnosis of the problems, debate about recovery has focused upon the idea of ‘rebalancing’ as a means of rebuilding new economic models that somehow correct the problematic and disruptive imbalances that generated the crisis. ‘Rebalancing’ has become an international concern for high-income economies such as Australia, UK and Japan, middle-income economies such as Portugal and South Korea as well as emerging economies such as Brazil and China. Yet it is not clear what ‘rebalancing’ might mean, whether and how it can be achieved and how it relates to currently dominant ‘new economic geographical’ models promoting greater spatial agglomeration and concentration of economic activities. These sessions will engage this debate on rebalancing regional and national economies.
CALL FOR PAPERS – Building Capacity for Scientific Innovation and Outcomes
Atlanta, GA, 15-17 September, 2011
The ability of science and innovation systems to deliver depends on continually improving capacity. Yet, capacity is multidimensional and has interrelated characteristics and related challenges. The Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2011 will explore the research base that addresses the broad range of capacity related issues central to the structure, function, performance and outcomes of the science and innovation enterprises. The conference will include a variety of sessions: plenaries to discuss critical questions, contributed paper sessions and a young researcher poster competition.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.