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
New Ontario Government Attracting Investments, Improving Health Outcomes
The Ontario government is investing in world-leading brain research to improve health care and create new jobs for the people of Ontario. Keeping the province on the cutting edge of research and innovation, the Ontario government will provide $100 million over five years to support patient-focused neuroscience research. The Province’s support will help the Ontario Brain Institute expand its research into the areas of neurodegeneration, such as Alzheimer’s disease, and depression and continue its important research on cerebral palsy, autism and epilepsy. It will also allow the institute to leverage additional investments from various partners including industry, philanthropic, federal and international sources. Investing in innovation and improving health care are part of the new Ontario government’s efforts to build a strong economy and a fair society for the benefit of all.
McGill and the University of Toronto Join the edX Consortium
The University of Toronto is joining edX, a US-based platform for massive open online courses that is accessible to students of all ages and means around the world. Founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, edX is designed to improve education, both online and on campus, while conducting research on how students learn. To date, edX has more than 675,000 subscribers; its goal is to educate one billion people worldwide in the next 10 years. As a new partner, the University of Toronto will deliver four courses on the www.edx.org platform in the subject areas of energy, public health, behavioural economics and organizational design. All will be taught by leading U of T scholars.
Mobilizing EU Capital Cities: Commissioner Hahn Urges Mayors to Lead Europe Out of Crisis
In a meeting last month Commissioner Hahn called on the 20 mayors attending to show leadership in the push for recovery and growth. He has argued for a more central role for capital cities as Europe’s economic and social powerhouses. He is also pushing for a more prominent urban dimension in Cohesion Policy and across all EU policies.The event aims to promote dialogue between the mayors of Europe’s capitals: between themselves, the European Commission and to mobilize them to fulfill the goals of the Europe2020 Agenda for Growth. Before the meeting Commissioner Hahn said, “Capital cities are where Europe’s economic and social problems are often most concentrated and most visible. But they are also the powerhouses of Europe – where the most important solutions can be found: in the fields of competitiveness, employment, education, transport, environment and innovation. This makes them crucial in lifting Europe out of crisis. Without Europe’s capital cities we cannot make the Europe2020 Growth Agenda a reality. That’s why I am calling on the mayors to lead the way in lifting Europe out of crisis.”
The University of Maryland Announces a New Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The University of Maryland announced today the launch of the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a signature initiative to infuse the university with a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship across all colleges and curriculum. The Academy, which will launch in Fall 2013, will include classes, workshops and outside-the-classroom experiences. The Academy will be led by Dr. Dean Chang, associate vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship for the University of Maryland, who is charged with coalescing and expanding entrepreneurial activities on campus.
Editor's Pick
MEXT
This white paper by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Tecnology (MEXT) focuses on the consequences of and lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), and its implications for science, technology and innovation (STI) policy. Its review of the response to the GEJE examines the issues raised by the earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear power station accident, particularly on public awareness of science and technology which has declined in trust though expectations remain high. The paper recommends STI measures to be utilized to overcome the problems caused by the GEJE and the application of R&D to recovery and reconstruction initiatives. Renewing society’s trust in STI policy can be accomplished by promoting S&T in response to social needs, and by risk communication, regulatory science and evaluation of the impact of advanced technologies on society to the creation of a system through which scientific advice can be provided to the government for use in public administration.
Innovation Policy
From the Entrepreneurial University to the University for the Entrepreneurial Society
David B. Audretsch, The Journal of Technology Transfer
This article examines how and why the role of the university in society has evolved over time. The paper argues that the forces shaping economic growth and performance have also influenced the corresponding role for the university. As the economy has evolved from being driven by physical capital to knowledge, and then again to driven by entrepreneurship, the role of the university has also evolved over time. While the entrepreneurial university was a response to generate technology transfer and knowledge-based startups, the role of the university in the entrepreneurial society has broadened to focus on enhancing entrepreneurship capital and facilitating behavior to prosper in an entrepreneurial society.
Public R&D Subsidies, Outside Private Support, and Employment Growth
Albert N. Link and John T. Scott, University of North Carolina Greensboro
In the aftermath of the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the employment effects of public subsidies have been scrutinized because of new emphasis on public accountability and transparency. This paper investigates conditions in which public subsidies of research and development (R&D) in small firms stimulate employment growth. Based on an empirical analysis of employment growth induced by U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program awards, it finds that the stimulated employment growth is greater under two conditions: one, the presence of outside investors providing additional funding for the R&D, and two, when an exceptional amount of intellectual property is created by the publicly subsidized R&D. In addition to outside investors, other firms that make commercial agreements with the subsidized firm appear important for the employment growth of the subsidized firm. Cooperation between the small business doing the R&D and other firms is an important determinant of the commercial success of the technologies created with the support of public funds.
Invention and the Mobile Economy
Darrel M. West, The Brookings Institution
As part of the Mobile Economy Project, this paper focuses on invention. West looks at key inventors, how different countries handle invention, and barriers that need to be overcome in order to promote mobile invention. He argues that invention is critical to future growth. In order to guarantee continued prosperity, the United States needs to maintain the culture of invention that has propelled the mobile industry to the economic forefront. This involves making needed research and development investment, commercializing knowledge, promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education, reforming immigration systems, and maintaining a sound patent system.
Bringing “Dead Cash” Back to Life
The Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity
This report focuses on the “dead cash” problem in Canada. People are asking if companies are holding excessive amounts of cash and cash equivalents in reserve. The White Paper demonstrates that Canadian corporations’ cash and cash equivalents are at an all-time high. Canadian corporations are now holding more cash than is optimal, and therefore the cash has been dubbed “dead” by many commentators. The Institute found that the three main drivers of the increase in the proportion of liquid assets are: long-term deleveraging, net working capital change, and cash flow uncertainty. Accumulating cash is often a rational response to economic uncertainty, but Canadian corporations are now holding an excess of approximately $45 billion. The White Paper recommends that government push corporations to bring some of the “dead cash” back to life and invest the excess cash in productivity-enhancing areas that will narrow Ontario’s persistent prosperity gap.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Policy Induced Innovation Networks: The Case of the German “Leading-Edge Cluster Competition”
Uwe Cantner, Holger Graf and Susanne Hinzmann, Friedrich Schiller University Jena
In 2008 the German ministry for education and research started the “Leading-Edge Cluster Competition” in which 15 clusters were selected in three waves (2008, 2010, 2012) and are funded for a five-year period with up to 40 million Euro each. This paper presents selected results regarding the influence of government funding on cooperation networks within five of the clusters that were successful in the first wave of this initiative.
Merging Municipalities: Is Bigger Better?
Enid Slack and Richard Bird, Institute on Municipal Finance and Government
The paper describes the challenges of governing metropolitan regions in different parts of the world, and the range of restructuring options that are considered to address them, including two-tier models, voluntary cooperation, special purpose districts, and amalgamations. Based on the international evidence, two-tier structures may be more effective in allowing metropolitan regions to recoup the benefits that come with large size, while retaining the responsiveness typical of smaller municipalities. The paper also includes a case study of the amalgamation in Toronto that provides new empirical research about its effects on municipal expenses and tax revenues, and the implications for governance and citizen participation.
Statistics & Indicators
Michael E. Porter, Jan W. Rivkin, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School
In this year’s survey, business leaders continued to be pessimistic about the future of U.S. competitiveness. Those foreseeing a decline in competitiveness outnumbered those predicting an improvement by more than two to one, a lower ratio than in the previous survey but still a wide margin. Members of the general public were more optimistic than business leaders about future competitiveness, but they saw eye-to-eye with business when identifying the greatest weaknesses in the U.S. business environment: America’s tax code, political system, K–12 education system, macroeconomic policies, legal framework, and regulations.
Jonathan Rothwell, José Lobo, Deborah Strumsky, and Mark Muro, The Brookings Institution
This is the first analysis of its kind to present patenting trends on a regional level from 1980 to 2012. The report ranks all of the nation’s roughly 360 metropolitan areas on patenting levels and growth, while noting the firms and organizations responsible. It also analyzes how patenting has affected productivity levels in each region, comparing patents—which embody novel inventions—to other sources of economic dynamism, such as educational attainment.
ScienceWatch
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Korea—the BRICK nations—have repeatedly been noted for their growing influence in the global economy and research landscape, and are often referred to as “emerging.” What would move them from emerging to established? To capture a better understanding of their progress, the authors reviewed data on R&D spending, human capital, research publications, and patent filings—key indicators of the sustained, diversified research innovation base enjoyed by many of the G7 knowledge economies. The data not only confirm and quantify the rising status of countries beyond the G7 axis as a group, but also spotlight the individual complexities that offer a richer tapestry behind the “emerging” label. For the analysis, this report draws on data from Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge, Derwent World Patent Index, and third-party data, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Red de Indicadores de Ciencia y Tecnología (RICYT), and the World Bank.
Policy Digest
A Plan for Australian Jobs: The Australian Government’s Industry and Innovation Statement
Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education
Supporting Australian Industry to Win New Business Abroad
The Government will establish up to 10 Industry Innovation Precincts to help Australian industry develop the capabilities to succeed in export markets and seize new business opportunities. Industry Innovation Precincts will extend and accelerate what is already occurring in parts of the economy. They will bring firms and researchers together to develop new products and processes, encourage new investment, take advantage of new technology and improve skills and capabilities. Precincts will be developed in sectors and locations where there is great potential to leverage existing strengths and deepen the concentration of innovation and expertise. The Australian pharmaceuticals industry will also be supported through reforms to improve the conduct of clinical trials in Australia. The Government will continue to support the vital automotive industry, including through diversification.
Industry Innovation Precincts will improve collaboration between industry and the research sector to help drive innovation that enables Australian business to win in the Asian Century. Led and run by industry, Precincts will comprise networks of firms, researchers and business service providers, including the higher education and vocational education and training sectors. Through Precincts, and the culture they help to develop, Australia can secure a better economic dividend from its public and private investments in research and innovation.
Industry Innovation Precincts
The Government will help Australian firms develop the connections, reach and scale to compete effectively in global markets through new Industry Innovation Precincts. The Industry Innovation Network, a digital platform connecting business to research capabilities across Australia, will spread access to the services and opportunities created by this investment.
Industry Innovation Precincts will deliver collaborative relationships between businesses and researchers, both at home and abroad. They will build critical mass in Australian industry and develop a cohort of growth-oriented businesses.
Industry Innovation Precincts will boost productivity by fostering clusters of innovative firms. They are designed to boost growth and productivity through business collaboration, networking and agglomeration that would not otherwise fully emerge because of existing barriers to innovation in Australia.
They will:
- help translate Australia’s research investment and expertise into successful commercial and economic outcomes,
- help research become more industry led, by focusing on challenges and opportunities identified by business,
- improve business scale and quality by enabling engagement between firms, developing shared facilities and services, and concentrating expertise in particular locations,
- develop links to international precincts and clusters – helping Australian know-how to access international production chains, and
- showcase innovation opportunities for our businesses.
Australia is not the first country to adopt these approaches to enhancing innovation. This initiative is informed by programs overseas, including the United Kingdom’s Catapult Centres and the United States’ National Network for Manufacturing Innovation.
Industry Innovation Precincts Build on Existing Programs
Under its strategy for 2011-2015, CSIRO has commenced an initiative to support the formation of research-focused “Global Precincts.” Three examples of these are in the fields of: Manufacturing and Materials Sciences in south east Melbourne at CSIRO, Monash University and connected to Geelong; a Resources Precinct in Perth; and an Environmental Sciences Precinct in Brisbane.
Industry Innovation Precincts and CSIRO’s research “Global Precincts” will work together to support collaboration and networks between industry and research.
The new Industry Innovation Precincts will have a direct partnership with the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) ITRP, which will only fund projects that are directly related to the priority research areas of Precincts. The ITRP will fund ARC Research Hubs and Centres to undertake applied research in areas identified as important by Precincts and their industry users. Precincts will also build upon the Government’s Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) program.
The Need for Collaboration
Only a small proportion of Australia’s firms have the scale of resources, domestic and global connections and culture to compete effectively in global markets.
A raft of evidence shows Australia has relatively low levels of engagement between firms and research and knowledge providers and even lower levels of international collaboration compared to other countries. OECD and Australian Bureau Statistics data shows that Australia ranks 23rd out of 26 OECD countries in terms of the proportion of businesses collaborating on innovation. A distinctive feature of global economic integration is the increasing rate of innovation engagement with foreign partners. Australian firms must build their capacity to access knowledge and make use of innovation developed overseas.
Complementary Action to Boost Innovation
The Government is committed to boosting innovation through the implementation of a National Research Investment Plan and consideration of breakthrough actions to enhance innovation. The establishment and implementation of Industry Innovation Precincts will complement the National Research Investment Plan and will implement a number of breakthrough actions to enhance innovation.
The National Research Investment Plan, released by the Government in November 2012, sets out a comprehensive national research investment planning process to ensure public research investment better serves the nation’s needs and provides demonstrable value for money.
It is vital that the Australian Government’s annual investment of nearly $9 billion in science, research and innovation is invested strategically, with clear priorities determining the direction of publicly funded research activity, and with research effort better aligned with emerging industry needs and capabilities.
Selection of the Industry Innovation Precincts will be informed by the Australian Research Committee’s work on the National Research Investment Plan.
Related to the development of the Plan has been the work of the Prime Minister’s Science Engineering and Innovation Council (PMSEIC) during 2012 to identify breakthrough actions to enhance innovation in Australian products and services. Consultation with the science community and industry was led by the Chief Scientist of Australia, Professor Ian Chubb and resulted in five PMSEIC proposals:
- establish an Australian Innovation Council,
- strengthen business access to publicly funded research expertise, infrastructure and data,
- encourage mobility of researchers between academia and business or other enterprises,
- harmonise intellectual property frameworks across the public research sector, and
- emphasise the role of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in changing the culture of both research and business sectors.
The Industry Innovation Precincts provide an important opportunity to trial the first four breakthrough actions recommended by PMSEIC as part of a broader government response by Government to the PMSEIC proposals.
Events
Madrid, Spain, 10-12 April, 2013
The Conference aims to encourage dialogue between academics and practitioners to improve innovation policy design, implementation and evaluation. The conference will offer keynote speeches, parallel thematic sessions, roundtable discussions, special activities for young researchers and ample space for all participants to interact. Visits to research and innovation centres both in public and private institutions will be offered after the conference.
Shape and Be Shaped: The Future Dynamics of Regional Development
Tampere, Finland, 5-8 May, 2013
In the many regions and localities of the world, there is an ever-growing need to find new solutions for the future, as they are increasingly confronted with intertwined sets of ecological, social and economic difficulties as well as new opportunities brought to them by the globalising economy. Indeed, there is a need to work for more balanced and sustainable development and cross the many institutional boundaries that prevent new solutions from being created. What makes all of this a demanding set of policy challenges, is that regions and localities need to find ways to manage their own destiny while being manipulated by many forces. The central idea underpinning the RSA 2013 conference in Tampere is that there is now an urgent need to better to understand how regions and localities can adapt to current challenges and deal with the wicked issues of sustainability by developing new multi-actor governance, policy-making and leadership capacities. The conference offers researchers and workers in local and regional development an opportunity to collectively explore and discuss these key issues from a multitude of perspectives and with different theoretical stand points and with empirical observations from different parts of the world.
Cluster Academy: Learning from the Clusterland Upper Austria”cluster region”
Linz, Austria, 14-17 May, 2013
The Cluster Academy shows how successful clusters work, using Clusterland Upper Austria Ltd. as an example and gives an input, how these processes could be implemented in your region. An additional benefit is the networking and exchange of experience effect with international participants, sharing the same interests in cluster activities. The cluster management workshop covers the areas of knowledge management, initiation and support of cooperation projects, qualification and event management, marketing & PR, internationalization, financing and evaluation & measuring. This year, more interactive formats of participation such as an ample case-study to complement lectures, field reports and presentations are being designed. Numerous direct visits to cluster companies should spot the motivation of being active in a cluster. Attractive side events give a chance to get to know the participants and the city of Linz.
9th International PhD School on Innovation and Economic Development
Tampere, Finland, 20-31 May, 2013
The aim of the Globelics Academy PhD-School is to support the training of Ph.D. students from different parts of the world and who are writing theses on issues related with innovation and economic development. The Academy brings together frontier researchers in innovation with Ph.D. students from developing countries in order to inspire and qualify their work as well as in order to help them to join high-quality research networks in their field of research.
16th Uddevalla Symposium 2013: Innovation, High-Growth Entrepreneurship and Regional Development
Kansas City, 13-15 June, 2013
The critical role of innovation and entrepreneurship in regional economic development in terms of productivity and employment growth has been well documented theoretically as well as empirically by researchers in recent decades. The specific mechanisms through which innovation stimulates regional economic development are less well established. It is often assumed that entrepreneurship in the form of new firm formation and the growth of newly established firms plays a critical role, but how, why, when and under what conditions is less clear. Empirical studies show that a limited share of new business ventures have the capacity to rapidly up-scale and to generate substantial new jobs in the regions where they are launched. From the perspective of regional policy makers, this implies that it is critical to understand what regional economic milieus are capable of generating innovations that can be the basis of high-growth entrepreneurship as well as provide the right environment for entrepreneurs to launch entrepreneurial initiatives.Against this background, we seek papers that, in particular, topics related to exploring these themes.
Experience the Creative Economy
Toronto, 18-21 June, 2013
The 6th Annual Experience the Creative Economy conference is a forum for emerging scholars who are engaged in research related to the creative economy. The conference brings together up to 25 individuals from around the world to share and discuss their research. In particular, the small and focused setting provides participants with the opportunity to: present their work; receive feedback; refine and develop research methods; and join an ongoing network of collaboration and exchange.
Knowledge-Based Entrepreneurship, the Triple Helix and Local Economic Development
London, UK, 10 July, 2013
The creation of innovative new firms and the development of SME innovation are strongly influenced by the extent to which localities offer environments that favour the transfer of knowledge to local business and provide the other resources required for innovative firm development, including skills, finance, advice, and supply chain partners. The concept of the ‘triple helix’ captures the interplay of government, research and industry in the promotion of business innovation and provides a framework for policymakers seeking to understand how to promote local knowledge-based entrepreneurship. The workshop will use this framework to examine the policy actions that governments can take to promote innovative new firm creation and SME innovation in local economies by improving conditions for knowledge transfer and knowledge-based entrepreneurship.
Brighton, UK, 10-12 July, 2013
Europe’s relations with the wider world are continuously undergoing change. The urban and regional significance of these changing relations remains surprisingly poorly understood. The global financial and economic crisis, the dramatic events of late 2010 and 2011 in the Middle East and North Africa, the continuing crisis in Europe, and the global rise of ‘new powers’ are each impacting on how Europe, its citizens, and its cities and regions are connected to the wider world. The 9th European Urban and Regional Studies conference aims to consider a wide range of consequences of these changes as well as other themes relating to European urban and regional change.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.