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
Startup Weekend Launches Startup Foundation Initiative in Partnerships with Kauffman Foundation
Startup Weekend, a global grassroots network of entrepreneurs and leaders, recently announced an initiative in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation that will lead to the creation of vibrant startup communities in cities across the nation. Called the Startup Foundation, the program is a grassroots initiative that helps cities build and establish ecosystems that will support more high-growth entrepreneurs, startups, and ultimately, jobs. Startup Weekends are events in cities around the world where aspiring founders and startup supporters meet to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch companies. With funding from the Kauffman Foundation, the Startup Foundation will focus on researching and mapping the ecosystems of participating cities to identify influential leaders, programs and gaps in community resources; supporting local initiatives that drive the creation of more entrepreneurs, startups, and jobs; and raising funds for local entrepreneurship support initiatives.The Startup Foundation currently has eight pilot member cities: Boston; Des Moines; Detroit; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; New York City; Seattle; and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Foundation co-founders in each city are mapping their local entrepreneurial ecosystem and interviewing community leaders.
New Centre of the Perimeter Institute Opened
Canada is now home to the largest theoretical physics research institution in the world, as Perimeter Institute opened its new Stephen Hawking Centre earlier this month. The centre is named in honour of Dr. Stephen Hawking, arguably the world’s most famous physicist, who is a Perimeter Institute Distinguished Research Chair. The Government of Canada has invested $110 million in Perimeter Institute’s research, training and outreach activities since 2007 through Industry Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
Editor's Pick
Canada’s Innovation Underperformance: Whose Policy Problem Is It?
Tijs Creutzberg, The Mowat Centre
Canadian firms are regularly outperformed in terms of innovation. This is now conventional wisdom and governments have invested significant funds trying to remedy this failing with little impact. This paper argues that Canadian federalism is at least part of the problem. In light of the impending release of the federal governmentís Research and Development (R&D) Review Panel Report, a refocusing of our public investments is needed. This paper finds that Canada is an extreme outlier in weighting its investment in innovation so heavily toward tax incentives and away from direct support to sectors. This paper argues that these funds would be better used for direct supports to the innovation process and would produce more value-added, world-leading, commercialized products and services. It also argues for a clearer division of policy roles whereby the federal government confines its support to maintaining the indirect and generic support for the innovation process, while provincial governments focus primarily on strategic investments. This refocusing would significantly simplify the program landscape and ensure greater emphasis is placed on direct investments that align with provincial strategic innovation objectives. The paper also highlights the emerging global consensus around the need for innovation policies to be place-based, to support the existing comparative advantages of the community, and to take advantage of local and regional networks and knowledge. Taken together, these findings suggest that in addition to withdrawing from direct investments, the federal government should also reduce its expenditures on tax incentives and instead direct these funds to provincial governments to be used for direct incentives.
Innovation Policy
Creativity and Prosperity: The Global Creativity Index
Martin Prosperity Institute
The economic crisis has challenged popular conceptions of economic growth, both in terms of the definition and the measurement of it. While engendering growth and bolstering competitiveness remains high on political agendas, immediate attention has shifted to creating jobs, lifting wages, addressing inequality, and fostering long-term, sustainability prosperity. This report addresses the challenge of nurturing sustainable economic development head-on, shifting the dialogue from a narrow focus on competitiveness and growth to a broader focus on creativity, prosperity, and well-being. The report compares the 3 Ts metrics with the Index (GCI) to established measures of economic and social progress. The GCI is closely associated with conventional measures of economic output and economic competitiveness, and it is also associated with broader measures of human development and life satisfaction (or happiness). Nations that score better on the 3 Ts not only have higher levels of economic output but also higher levels of human development and happiness. It also finds that the GCIis associated with greater economic equality; nations that score higher on the GCI have less inequality. These findings suggest that there are two distinct paths available to greater economic competitiveness. On the one hand, there are nations like the United States and the United Kingdom, who exhibit high levels of economic output and competitiveness alongside higher levels of inequality. On the other hand, there are a greater number of nations like Sweden and Norway, where high levels of economic output and competitiveness occur alongside far greater equality. This suggests that there exists a high-road path to sustainable prosperity, where the fruits of economic progress are broadly shared.
Furture Prospects for Industrial Biotechnology
OECD
The field of industrial biotechnology has moved rapidly in recent years as a combined result of international political desire, especially in the case of biofuels, and unprecedented progress in molecular biology research that has supplied the enabling technologies. Different geographical regions have different priorities, but common drivers are climate change mitigation and the desire for energy independence. Now, industrial biotechnology has reached the centre of scientific and political attention. At no time in the past has there been a more pressing need for coherent, evidence-based, proportionate regulations and policy measures; they are at the heart of responsible development of industrial biotechnology. This publication examines the international drivers, the enabling technologies that are fast-tracking Industrial Biotechnology, industry trends, some of the products that are appearing on the market, industry structure and finance, and finally policy measures and trends. It examines separately biofuels, biobased chemicals and bioplastics. It is quite clear that a supportive policy framework for the development of biofuels exists in many countries, but that no such framework is in place for biobased chemicals and bioplastics. This seems at odds with the apparent need for the integrated biorefinery, where chemicals and plastics production will significantly improve profitability when produced alongside transportation fuels.
Science and Innovation Network Report: April 2010 to March 2011
UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)
Science and innovation play a key role in promoting prosperity and growth. They are at the heart of government strategy for promoting sustainable UK economic recovery. International collaboration in science and innovation is vital for meeting policy challenges on a global scale. Challenges such as pandemic disease, climate change, and food security, require the ability to engage other governments with, and through, sound science. This report showcases examples of work of the Science and Innovation Network in all areas of these objectives. A small selection of the successes of the SIN is contained in the first three sections, with further examples accompanying profiles of each country or region. The final section of this report is a directory containing details of members of the SIN team in each country or region.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Growing the Future: Universities Leading, Changing and Creating the Regional Economy
University Alliance
This report illustrates the vital role universities are playing in the economy through the voices of the very people who have experienced firsthand the power of genuine engagement and partnership with universities. Contributors range from business leaders, politicians, economists and the like from the UK and abroad, including, amongst others, Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Richard Lambert, Will Hutton, Angela Sainiand a foreword from Vince Cable. The report argues that universities are driving growth through: regional leadership and ‘anchor’ capacity; as change agents starting, growing and supporting enterprises; creating and diffusing research-led innovation; delivering a knowledge workforce; and attracting inward investment.
Creative Atmosphere: Cultural Industries and Local Development
Walter Santageta and Enrico Bertacchini, University of Torino
The aim of the paper is to develop an analytical framework for understanding and measuring the impact of cultural industries and creative activities in local development. Despite the great debate on the importance of cultural and creative industries in policy, academic and business circles, we still lack a grounded theoretical model to understand how these activities contributes to local development and how far enhancement of culture-based creativity may be linked to certain social and economic configurations in these industries. In order to better understand the role of cultural industries in local development we propose a novel framework, which tries to depict the main actors and structure of local systems of cultural production and under what conditions such systems are able to generate and express creative atmosphere.
Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation
Analyses of 140 clusters and 16 cluster programs have provided a comprehensive set of information and new knowledge about the characteristics of cluster management organizations and clusters in terms of age, size, composition of membership, regional concentration and financing, which are presented in this report. The report also provides eight policy recommendations for future developments of cluster programs.
Statistics & Indicators
From the Ground Up: Growing Toronto’s Cultural Sector
City of Toronto & Martin Prosperity Institute
This report examines the relationship between culture, economy and space in the city of Toronto. The report argues that a strong cultural sector has a variety of positive impacts on the and city’s competitiveness, prosperity and quality of place. As one of the contributors to the report, The Martin Prosperity Institute developed a new metric for quantifying the cultural economy within a city. The Cultural Location Index (CLI) includes three major aspects of the cultural economy: the share of artists and cultural workers living in a census tract, the share of cultural workers working in a census tract and the number cultural facilities in that census tract. Because, when it comes to understanding cultural activity and geography, no single data source can give a full picture on its own, the CLI was developed to provide a quick overview of the concentration of the cultural activity in the City of Toronto, allowing areas that score well on all aspects to stand out. All data sources were weighted equally and the index was created using an equal-weight, inverse rank approach.
EDAC-ACDE
This report summarizes an examination of the literature on Performance Measurement in Economic Development to provide guidance to economic developers for the creation of their own metrics. Performance measures should flow from the organization’s strategic plan with the specific metrics selected to measure the progress towards the plan’s objectives. If for example an objective of the plan is to diversify the local economy away from a dependence on traditional industries (manufacturing, resource or agriculture) by targeting the growth of knowledge intensive businesses such as consulting engineering or computer systems development, it should include a specific metric that will show the number of jobs created or how many new knowledge intensive businesses have been opened or expanded in the area rather than measuring growth in all sectors.The metrics selected will also vary from one type of an organization to another. The metrics selected by an economic development organization focusing on small business development will be different from those of an organization with a business retention and expansion mandate or a business attraction focus.
Two Reports on the British Columbia High Technology Sector
BC Stats
The first report measures the growth and performance of the high tech sector in the province. It highlights some of the difficulties experienced in 2009 where it’s output diminished by 2.1% and exports also slowed. In the same period total employment fell while salaries continued to rise. The second report explores the conditions that affect the performance of the high tech sector in British Columbia from the supply side. Universities and research institutes in the province produced a high quantity of patents and licenses with the University of British Columbia leading the field. The province also has strong financing for higher education and research.
Policy Digest
Rights and Rents: Why Canada Must Harness its Intellectual Property Resources
Karen Mazurkewich, Canadian International Council (CIC)
This report argues that Canada is paying a steep price for its short-sighted approach to intellectual property (IP). Canada’s IP policies and practices are affecting its economy. While other competitors bring in billions of dollars by selling or leasing their IP, Canada runs a significant technology deficit—more than $4.5 billion U.S. in 2009 (among the largest shortfalls in the industrial world, according to the World Bank). Canada invests heavily in its own R&D, much of which leaks out; then it spends heavily on acquiring technology from outsiders. Canada needs new thinking on innovation—an approach that includes consideration of IP. The report strongly urges the Canadian government to integrate a national IP strategy into an overall innovation framework. Among the report’s recommendations: Canada should undertake a broad review of its current patent policy; address barriers that hold Canadian companies back; create a central office for intellectual property reporting directly to the prime minister; launch a separate division of the federal court to deal with intellectual property; and open regionally-focused technology transfer offices.
Why IP matters
- The race for agricultural productivity will define the 21st century. Regions that can grow crops efficiently in the toughest environmental conditions will become hubs of innovation and employment. Innovative students of agricultural chemistry, industrial ecology and food security will build the great corporations of the future;
- Our ability to address energy demand using more efficient and cleaner sources also requires new technologies. These are innovations which will redefine the global economy;
- Boundaries are being blurred between traditional sectors, such as nanotechnology and forestry, software and medicine. Building a true knowledge economy requires a sophisticated IP strategy;
- IP is critical to helping Canadian companies compete on the global stage. At the same time, it is an important international trade issue;
- Collaborating to produce IP fosters academic and industrial research and development;
- Venture-capital firms and angel investors are a growing part of the innovation ecosystem and consider IP an essential ingredient. They want to work with companies that have solid IP that can be marketed to large industrial or technological enterprises.
Why protecting it is important
- IP turns knowledge into a commercial asset. People defend it, sell it, rent it, trade it, pool it and share it. Today, more money is spent by corporations on intangibles than on physical assets. This new currency is of great strategic importance—so great that patent proliferation and litigation have led to a virtual IP arms race;
- IP is easily exported, and losing control of it means an irretrievable loss of jobs and a strategic brain drain if inventors follow their inventions.
Who is leading the way?
- Britain, Australia, South Africa, China, and Korea have all developed robust IP policies in recent years, and interest is so great among developing nations that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) received no fewer than 30
requests last year from countries seeking assistance. While Canada has reviewed its copyright policy and drafted new legislation, it has paid little attention to many other critical components of IP: patents, trademarks, designs and geographic designations (why champagne is only champagne when it comes from the Champagne region); - In Asia and Europe, IP is viewed as part of the new financial frontier. Japan and Korea have launched sovereign patent-investment funds to compete with foreign rivals, and European countries are banding together to do the same;
- Multinationals such as General Electric and Nike have become more open to collaborative arrangements that involve sharing their IP, a trend Canadian companies should observe and learn from.
Recommendations
- The federal government should create a new central office for intellectual property with a steering committee that reports directly to the prime minister. This office would develop policy and legislation with the goal of promoting innovation,
providing information and offering services related to IP. Currently, jurisdiction over IP is divided between no fewer than four departments—Industry, Foreign Affairs, Heritage and Justice; - The new national IP office should have a steering committee to advise the prime minister directly on policy and legislation. It also should devise its own corporate strategy to execute a national vision encompassing all sectors of the economy. The
Canadian Intellectual Property Office, which currently administers IP, lacks the ability to address directly the shortcomings of an outdated policy framework it is powerless to change. It also has no mandate to provide services, training or expertise to small companies. By contrast, the European Patent Office has more influence in determining the policy it must administer and the procedures it must follow; - The office also should have a leader who is strong, visible, dynamic and completely familiar with the IP landscape. This “czar” should be granted a clear mandate that includes the power to conduct a comprehensive review to maximize IP policy that best strikes a balance between meeting Canada’s international obligations and serving the national interest;
- Even with the central office in place, IP policy should be re-evaluated on a regular basis, to help keep Canada globally competitive.
Events
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.
Living in the Endless City – Global Challenges in an Urban Age
Toronto, 26 October, 2011
Toronto is a big city in need of ideas. This public lecture series features global leaders in urban an regional planning. This lecture, by Ricky Durdett (Director of the London School of Economies Cities and the Urban Age program) focuses on how global cities can best plan and deliver big projects and on how rapid urbanization is affecting the way the world lives.
SSTI 15th Annual Conference: Innovative Economies – Creating Our Future
Columbus, OH, 8-9 November, 2011
No longer limited to a niche group of practitioners, promoting growth through innovation and technology has achieved widespread acceptance as the key to our economic prosperity. You’ll find it in blog posts and opinion pages from across the political spectrum, and in virtually every corporate or civic dialogue today on revitalizing America’s economy. Meanwhile, most state and local governments — where the majority of funding for technology-based economic development (TBED) comes from — are experiencing a fiscal crisis that won’t go away anytime soon. Also, activities funded directly by universities are feeling the pinch. Then there’s the federal budget situation.This conference brings together leaders in the field to share best practices and lessons learned, so you walk away with practical tips and new ideas to apply, including those that can have an impact even with a limited budget. And we’ll also look at the latest developments in the field and when they make sense for your area.
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.
CALL FOR PAPERS – DRUID Academy Conference 2012
Cambridge, UK, 19-21 January, 2012
The conference is open for all PhD students working within the broad field of economics, entrepreneurship 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 most welcome (we of course encourage DRUID Academy PhD students and students previously connected DRUID conferences to submit an abstract as well). Do not hesitate to apply even if you have not been in contact with DRUID previously.
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.