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
Province Spending $1.1 Million to Help University Students Launch Companies
The Ontario provincial government is investing nearly $1.1 million to help hundreds of university students start their own companies. The money will pay for mentoring, legal and financial advice, networking events, and even provide some $25,000 cash grants to students who are ready to launch their high-technology businesses. The University of Waterloo will get $1 million, which will triple the number of students involved to at least 600, up from 200 now . Wilfrid Laurier University’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program, which is open to master’s students in the school of business and economics, will get $95,000.
Canadian Government Announces $15 Million in Collaborative Health Research Projects
The Government of Canada awarded $15 million in funding to 17 universities through the Collaborative Health Research Projects (CHRP) program. CRHP is a partnership between the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the grants are designed to assist new projects that involve interdisciplinary collaborations between any field of the natural sciences or engineering and the health sciences. The grant recipients were selected following a peer review competition and each recipient will receive between $150,000 and $690,000 over three years.
The Government of Canada Invests in Clean Water Technology
London, Waterloo and Toronto, Ontario – Southern Ontario families will benefit from a new system to develop, test and demonstrate clean water technologies for local, national and global markets thanks to a federal investment in a new partnership, the Southern Ontario Water Consortium. Through the Southern Ontario Water Consortium, universities, private sector companies, municipalities and not-for-profit organizations will work together to develop, test, and pilot market-driven water technologies that are in high demand both regionally and around the world. The FedDev Ontario contribution will go toward the purchase and installation of equipment related to setting up the water system components spanning the London, Waterloo, Guelph, Hamilton and Toronto areas.
Editor's Pick
An Economic Growth and Competitiveness Agenda for California
Lt. Governor Gavin Newsome
This is the first statewide economic plan in over a decade. It outlines steps to develop a new economic model that “embraces the shift from a consumption-based economy to a production economy focused on global trade.” Many of the report’s recommendations align with the same “new economy” concepts often discussed by policymakers and researchers with much of the input derived from the Brookings Institution and the McKinsey Global Institute. Such strategies include: Gearing up exports, reinvigorating manufacturing, driving innovation, accelerating the clean economy, skilling up for opportunities, building infrastructure, and aligning with regional strengths. Notably, the report points to successful state and international programs as models for each strategy outlined. For example, the report refers to Ohio’s Third Frontier Program and the Ben Franklin Technology Partners as models for driving innovation. Chicago’s Austin Polytechnical Academy and the Georgia Work Ready programs are offered as models for building a pipeline of educated, qualified workers.
Innovation Policy
Booz & Co and the University of Michigan’s Tauber Institute for Global Operations
This study warns that if the U.S. continues to neglect the manufacturing sector, the sector’s output could fall by half to meeting less than 40 percent of the nation’s demand. The authors point out three significant findings that emerged from the study. First, contrary to popular belief, U.S. manufacturing has been much more productive. Currently, U.S. companies produce about 75 percent of the products consumed by the nation. Second, manufacturing will remain largely regional. According to the authors, no single country will become “the factory of the world.” Instead, manufacturers will increasingly locate factories close to major markets, including the U.S., Europe and Southeast Asia. Third, labor costs and currency rates are playing a decreasing role in decisions by manufacturing executives. Instead, other factors are driving manufacturers’ choices. This report explores these factors and makes a series of recommendations to improve performance in these areas.
New Insights on the Role of Loaction Advantages in International Innovation
Rahneesh Narual and Grazia D. Santangelo, UNU-MERIT
This paper takes a closer look at the role of location advantages in the spatial distribution of MNE R&D activity. In doing so, it returns to first principles by revisiting our understanding of L and O advantages and their interaction. This paper revisits the meaning of L advantages, and offer a succinct differentiation of L advantages. It emphasises the importance of institutions, and flesh out the concept of collocation L advantages, which play an important role at the industry and firm levels of analysis. Just because a country possesses certain L advantages when viewed at a macro-level, does not imply that these are available to all industries or all firms in that location without differential cost. When these are linked to the distinction between location-bound and non location-bound advantages, and the paper distinguishes between MNEs and subsidiaries and allows for a clearer understanding of the MNE’s spatially distributed activities. These are discussed here in the context of R&D, which – in addition to the usual uncertainties faced by firms – must deal with the uncertainties associated with innovation. Although prior literature has sometimes framed the
centralization/decentralization, spatial separation/collocation debates as a paradox facing firms, when viewed within the context of the cognitive limits to resources, the complexities of institutions, and the slow pace of the evolving specialisation of locations, these are in actuality trade-offs firms must make.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Karen E. Klien, Bloomberg Businessweek
How do cities successfully engineer conditions to attract high value-added small companies that will create new jobs? Two California cities that have successfully made their climates business friendly are Irvine in the south, with about 212,000 residents, and San Jose in the north, with a population around 946,000. Both cities suffered during the recession and are expensive places to do business, given California’s stringent regulatory climate and relatively high tax rates and minimum wage. But both cities have established successful public-private partnerships and programs aimed at encouraging businesses. This article outlines some of their strategies that others could apply in their own regions.
Metropolitan Regions: Preconditions and Strategies for Growth and Development in the Global Economy
Johan Kaesson, Jorje Johansson, Charlie Karlsson, CESIS
The importance of metropolitan regions as national growth and development engines, and in particular as driving forces in national as well as global innovation processes is well recognized. This paper highlights the role of metropolitan regions in different contexts in order to lay a foundation for future research on metropolitan regions and their development. Specifically, the paper dwells on the role of metropolitan regions as nodes in national and international networks and as nodes of knowledge generation and innovation. Further, market potential as a concept describing the economic concentration to and the opportunities of making contacts within and between metropolitan regions is introduced. Additionally, the internal dynamic of metropolitan regions and the role of fast and slow processes is described. Lastly this paper illustrates how the input and output market potentials represent factors that adjust slowly and that play the same role for metropolitan development as metropolitan infrastructure.
Stimulating Business Innovation: Making Manchester a Leader in Enterprise Innovation and Support
Kram Sadiq, Philip Shapira and Alexander Roy
This paper considers how Greater Manchester might move forward in stimulating business innovation to underpin long-term sustainable growth. The aim of the paper is to contribute to deliberation about the priorities and strategies of the new Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership and to ensure that enterprising companies in Greater Manchester can participate in a vibrant network of services and facilities that encourages and enables them to innovate and grow
Statistics & Indicators
Interactive Map: The United States of Venture Capital
Scott Austin, The Wall Street Journal
While start-ups in Silicon Valley, Boston and New York receive the bulk of venture capital, and the most media attention, the money is actually spread around the country further than you might think. This interactive map was constructed using data from the Dow Jones VentureSource of the over 1,500 venture capital funding deals (worth more than $1.4 billion) that took place in the first six months of 2011. California naturally leads the Top 10 with nearly $7 billion of the capital, almost half the share, followed by Massachusetts (~$2 billion), New York (~$1.1 billion), Virginia (~$500 million), Texas (~$400 million), Illinois (~$300 million), Colorado (~$290 million), Pennsylvania (~$275 million), Georgia (~$250 million) and Washington (~$230 million). You can splice the data by industry (healthcare, for example), funding round class (seed, first round, etc.) and region.
Understanding Global R&D Investment Decisions in the Toronto Region
Toronto Region Research Alliance
This survey was conducted to determine which ones companies consider most important when deciding where to make an international R&D investment. Respondents also were asked to identify countries they felt were Canada’s competitors for new R&D investment, and compare Canada’s performance on the general considerations. Finally, the survey asked respondents to indicate their perception of the Toronto Region for each factor.
Overview of Developments in ICT Investment in Canada, 2010: Rebounding from the Recession
Andrew Sharpe and Dylan Moeller, CSLS
The aim of this report is to provide an overview of recent developments in ICT investment in Canada. The analysis is based on a 2010 update of the ICT database for Canada developed and maintained by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS).
This report is divided into three sections, all of which offer a focus on ICT investment by component (computer, communication equipment and software investment). The first section reviews developments in current dollar ICT investment. It looks at ICT investment as a share of GDP, ICT investment in both the business and non-business sector, ICT investment by industry and ICT investment per worker. The second section then reviews developments in ICT prices. Finally, the third section analyzes the major developments in constant dollar (chained 2002 dollars) ICT investment, focusing on the same dimensions examined under nominal ICT investment. The report builds on and extends earlier CSLS work on ICT investment trends
Policy Digest
Why the US Government Should Embrace Smart Cities
Bruce Katz, The Brookings Institution
Global companies, having wired people throughout the world, are now on a mission to connect cities, within and without, through the integrated application of advanced technologies like wireless sensors and processors, mobile and video telecommunications, and geographic information systems. The tantalizing prospect: cities and metropolitan areas that use technology to manage urban congestion, maximize energy efficiency, enhance public security, allocate scarce resources based on real time evidence, even educate their citizenry through remote learning. The United States would seem tailor made for this market transformation. One of the most urbanized countries in the world, cities and metropolitan areas house over 83% of the population and generate 90 percent of national GDP. American companies (and the U.S. military) have been innovative leaders in the invention of technologies critical to making cities smart. Despite these natural advantages, the U.S. lags rather than leads the move towards smart cities.
Smart Cities can be new or old
New cities in developing economies have a leg up, because it is always easier to install and integrate technology from scratch rather than retrofit existing systems. The Tianjin Eco-City in China is deploying the latest in technologies in renewable energy, water conservation and intelligent transport to create a new community of 350,000 residents. Another new metropolis, Songdo, South Korea, is considered by technology experts to be the digital city of the future.
Yet established cities have also applied advanced technologies at scale when supported by strong public policies at the national scale. To this end, Germany’s low carbon framework helps explain why Hamburg and Freiburg are leaders in energy efficiency. Both cities have also adopted their own strict climate action plans that support development of more efficient and technologically-sophisticated buildings and transport networks. Freiburg has become known as the “Solar Region” of Germany, due to its clustering of solar manufacturing firms, research institutes and policies for deployment in commercial, industrial and residential buildings.
Barriers to Smart Cities in the United States: Government fragmentation
The most important barrier, however, to U.S. leadership may be institutional fragmentation. Unlike the sale of new iPhones or Kindles (which favor innovative design, creative branding and the purchasing power of well-off consumers), the growth of smart cities demands strategic execution at the municipal and metropolitan scale and a close working relationship between business, government, and the broader citizenry.
Despite America’s oft-stated preference for limited government, the United States is awash in a sea of balkanized governmental bodies. By one count, the U.S. has 19,492 units of general purpose municipal governments, 13,051 school districts, and 37,381 special authorities. The Chicago metropolis alone crosses 14 counties in three states and is chopped up into 347 municipalities, 365 school districts, and 137 library districts. As a consequence, the typical governmental body in the United States is small, inward looking, and under-resourced.
An excess of municipal governments (and the general absence of metropolitan governments) means that there is no “one stop shop” for the application of innovative technologies in American cities and metropolitan areas. The public institutions which make decisions about transport are different from the ones that make decisions about education or water. These separate entities rarely coordinate with each other to integrate technology (and share information) between themselves or with utilities and other private or quasi public entities. Federal and state governments rarely act to overcome this fragmentation by using strong mandates or healthy incentives to spur the widespread application of technology.
Bucking the trend: Smart Cities in the U.S. need government support
In contrast to increasing calls for U.S. government to get out of the way, catalyzing an American smart cities market requires governments to get in the game. The federal and state governments should become smart investors. Federal transportation law, for example, could reward metropolitan areas that embrace congestion pricing or allocate transportation resources based on the integration of housing, transport and employment data. States could require fragmented municipal governments to establish common platforms for shared services or challenges. All these efforts would trigger markets for the application of smart technology.
At the city or metropolitan scale, intermediaries are needed to negotiate across the fragmented landscape of governmental and private entities. An example of this is Amsterdam Innovation Motor (AIM), a public private partnership in the city of Amsterdam that is catalyzing the creation of a smart grid and wide-scale adoption of smart metering.
If governments don’t act, private companies could try to work with consortia or pools of governments to achieve the same goals (as IBM is doing with its “smart city in a box”). This is a second best solution, but one which is already used effectively for the procurement of goods and services.
To reap the benefits of the smart cities movement requires the U.S. get smart in more ways than one. At stake are not just greater livability and sustainability but the jobs and investment that accrue to communities at the cutting edge of innovation
Events
Statement of Interest Workshops: How to Build a Winning Application 
Toronto, 7 September, 2011/ Waterloo, 8 September, 2011
The Statement of Interest (SOI) Workshops will provide prospective applicants with key information and practical guidance to prepare a quality SOI submission. During the workshop, the Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) Applications team will present an overview of SDTC funding mandate, which includes the development and demonstration of new Canadian clean technology innovations that address issues of climate change, clean air, clean water, water conservation and soil quality.The session will enable prospective applicants to assess the potential fit of their technology with SDTC’s SD Tech Fund, and to gain an understanding of the application process and key evaluation criteria.
What I Have Learned About Cities
Toronto, 8 September, 2011
From activism to municipal research, to advising on provincial public policies, to social advocacy, to running Canada’s largest national think tank, Anne Golden’s career has revolved around cities. In her presentation, Anne will reflect on what she has learned about cities over the last four decades.
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.
The Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on Capital Cities
Warsaw, Poland, 23 September, 2011
Numerous studies and surveys from across Europe demonstrate that in ‘old EU’ the biggest cities are suffering the most from recession, while in new EU members and in Eastern Europe it is rural areas that suffer while cities and capital cities in particular are able to sustain their growth (or to minimize decline). Thus we are proposing to create a Regional Studies Association Research Network which will look at various cases of capital cities’ reactions in the wake of global economic crisis and will come up with the tentative summary of different trends and types of responses which would be useful for further regional socio-economic analysis.
Lund, Sweden, 13-14 October, 2011
The conference offers two days of plenaries, presentations and intense discussions on preconditions and strategies for regional innovation policy and regional development in Europe. It is organized around five key themes: (1) Preconditions for sustainable development (economically, socially and environmentally) in European regions: (2) the role of universities in the promotion of regional development; (3) sectoral specificities (resource based and cultural/creative industries) and their impacts on regional competitiveness; (4) Southern European regions and their strategies to grow out of the global economic crisis; (5) the growth of emerging economies in Asia and Latin America and consequences for European regions. Confirmed keynote speakers include Meric Gertler (University of Toronto), Claire Nauwelaers (OECD), Staffan Laestadius (Royal Institute of Technology KTH), Dominic Power (Uppsala University), Mario Rui Silva (University of Porto) and Cristina Chaminade (Lund University).
Culture, Place and Identity at the Heart of Regional Development
St, John’s, 13-15 October, 2011
This conference will examine the relationship between the arts, cultural heritage and regional development in islands and in rural and remote regions. It will bring together representatives from academia, government, the arts community, the cultural heritage community, the knowledge economy, the tourism industry, and organizations dealing with regional development. It will examine global trends in tourism, technology and demographics, and will feature global best practices in cultural tourism.
Building Better Bridges: Creating Successful Partnerships
Ottawa, 25-26 October, 2011
This is a course designed to provide tools and insights for assisting technology management, research services and applied research professionals from Canadian universities, research hospitals, polytechnics and colleges, develop new and improved practices and models for effectively engaging and carrying out collaborations with industry, government and non-profit partners. Participants will explore new ways to convey the concept that academic-based research organizations are open for business and encourage collaboration.
INNOVATION 2011: Canada’s R&D Partnership Conference
Montreal, 20-22 November, 2011
INNOVATION 2011 is a networking and professional development conference that draws from the global community of technology transfer and industry engagement practitioners from academia, industry and government as well as venture investors and other managers of Canada’s intellectual assets. Partnerships with local, regional and national industry associations and others will enrich the program significantly. In addition to professional development, opportunities for networking, marketing and building relationships with key individuals and organizations in Canada’s Innovation Ecosystem are key cornerstones of the Conference.
Multi-level Governance and Partnership in EU Cohesion Policy
Vienna, Austria, 29-30 November, 2011
The first workshop will tackle the issues of multi-level governance and partnership in EU cohesion policy. The imposition of multi-level and horizontal cooperation in implementation of cohesion funding challenged the established patterns of interaction between the levels of government and the actors involved in regional policy delivery. The partnership principle has also been praised for its positive impact in terms of improvement of administrative capacity and favouring learning across organizational boundaries. In addition, effective multi-level governance mechanisms and horizontal partnership are also considered as crucial for purposeful and strategic use of the Structural Funds. Thus, EU cohesion policy is expected to become more results-oriented in 2014-2020 thanks to, among other measures, an emphasis on a place-based approach, a concept closely linked with multi-level governance and partnership. However, there are major barriers for the functioning of multi-level governance, such as reluctance of some national governments to allow the sub-national actors to play a more important role; or lack of capacity at the regional level to actively take part in shaping and implementation of EU cohesion policy, particularly in countries with centralized and hierarchical administration systems. Likewise, as the ex-post evaluations of 2000-2006 period and the academic research to date suggest, the application of horizontal partnership varies considerably across the Member States and can remain superficial and ‘formal.’
Innovation in a Sustainable Supply Chain: A Global Challenge
Montreal, 5-6 December, 2011
Aéro Montréal, the Québec Aerospace Cluster, in collaboration with CRIAQ, is organizing the third forum entirely dedicated to aerospace innovation. More than 500 participants and renowned speakers from the aerospace industry from Québec, Canada and abroad. The program includes conferences, workshops, B2B technology meetings and innovation exhibits.
Saint-Etienne, France, 26-28 January, 2012
Public and corporate actors are faced with pressing questions concerning innovation policy and the return of R&D investment. To answer these questions, new perspectives are necessary to overthrow received wisdom. This first European seminar on “Geography of Innovation” invites scholars from all disciplines to present their work on local and global processes of innovation, on the interaction between science, technology and policy, on clusters, entrepreneurship and competitiveness, and on green growth and sustainability. To further our understanding of innovation processes, the seminar intends to bring together a variety of disciplines including economic geography, regional science, economics of innovation, network theory and management science. We further welcome new contributions to the establishment of (European) databases as well as new analytical tools, including spatial econometrics, network analysis, (interactive) visualization, bibliometrics and policy evaluation tools.
The Governance of Innovation and Socio-Technical Systems: Theorizing and Explaining Change
Copenhagen, Denmark, 1-2 March, 2012
‘Governance’ is a notion that has gained increasing currency the past years in the field of (sectoral) innovation systems and socio-technical systems’ studies. Generally speaking, it refers to the ability of a society to solve collective action problems in issues that involve science, technology and innovation. However, there continues to be a considerable level of indeterminacy in the literature. Firstly, because the empirical literature on systems exhibits multiple understanding of change, and hence about how governance processes take place. This diversity has not been properly spelled out, obscuring the way in which change is linked to specific forms of (effective) governance. And secondly, because these empirical studies tend to use the notion ‘governance’ in rather loose conceptual terms and sometimes even only implicitly. This tends to underestimate or ignore the coordination aspect embedded in any form of systemic change. For these two reasons, the actual explanatory capacity of the notion ‘governance’ when studying systems’ change remains limited. This workshop aims at addressing this gap in the literature, asking how do agents and institutions coordinate in the process of generating change in complex socio-technical and (sectoral) innovation systems.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.