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
Revving Up Manufacturing, Region by Region
The Brookings Institution
One of the best ways to drive innovation and economic growth is by connecting critical R&D-focused anchor institutions—like the Department of Energy’s Energy Innovation Hubs or the proposed Advanced Industries Innovation Hubs —to broader regional strategies that seek to strengthen a region’s innovation ecosystem. In providing support for regional innovation clusters, such strategies nurture these major centers of research by fostering knowledge sharing and spillovers, expediting technology transfer and commercialization, and fostering entrepreneurialism. Now, a pair of items in the new Department of Commerce budget has picked up on that logic by placing side by side two welcome manufacturing policy initiatives.
The Ontario Brain Institute recently partnered with Ontario Centres of Excellence to expand North America’s first funding program for neuroscience entrepreneurs. Applications are now open for Year Two of Entrepreneurial Fellowships that offer $50,000 to each of 10 Ontario post-graduates to turn their neuro-discoveries into companies and jobs.
Education Department Launches 2013 Investing in Innovation Competition
The U.S. Department of Education announced the start of the $150 million 2013 Investing in Innovation (i3) grant competition with the release of the program’s invitation for pre-applications for the i3 “Development” grant category and the notice of final priorities for the i3 program overall. The i3 program aims to develop and expand practices that accelerate student achievement and prepare every student to succeed in college and in their careers. The i3 program includes three grant categories: Development, Validation and Scale-up. The Department plans to announce applications for the Validation and Scale-up categories later this spring.
Editor's Pick
State Technology and Science Index
Milken Institute
The 2012 State Technology and Science Index is the Milken Institute’s fifth in the decade since the first report was released in 2002. The overwhelming trend this year is that technology and science are leading the economic recovery, and as a result, competition among the states is getting tougher. This year Massachusetts ranked first-again-with its highest score ever. By widening the gap between it and other states, Massachusetts has further cemented its lead in science and technology. With a critical mass of universities, research institutions, and cutting-edge firms, the indomitable state has placed first in every edition of the index. Another finding is that the economic resurgence of the technology and science sector is clear. In the 2010 index, performance was down across the board, even in economically strong regions such as Silicon Valley, as the nation coped with uncertainty brought on by the downturn. But the science and tech sectors are storming back and will likely lead any economic renaissance.
Innovation Policy
More Stability, Please: A New Policy Approach to Canada’s Exchange Rate
Peter S. Spiro, Mowat Centre
In recent years, Canada’s exchange rate has been at historically high levels. There are differing views on the extent to which this high exchange rate, generated in part by a booming resource sector, has hurt other parts of the Canadian economy. This paper concludes that the evidence is overwhelming: the high dollar has hurt the Canadian economy and the Ontario economy in particular. It suggests how the Bank of Canada can mitigate the harm to the Ontario economy and the manufacturing sector, without damaging other sectors of the economy or other regions.
American Energy and Manufacturing Competitiveness Partnership
This report provides an extensive literature review and “mapping” of past and current research efforts regarding links between energy efficiency, renewable energy and manufacturing competitiveness; barriers to energy and manufacturing competitiveness; and models for public-private partnerships (PPPs) for fostering competitive industries in the U.S. A supplemental document, A Summary of Public-Private Partnerships, offers deeper insights into the linkages between PPPs, barriers and policy through a comprehensive infographic. The Council undertook an extensive, side-by-side comparison and analysis of 19 PPPs and 180 policy recommendations around the world.
U.S. Productivity Growth: An Optimistic Perspective
Martin Neil Baily, James M. Manyika and Shalabh Gupta, The Brookings Institution
Recent literature has expressed considerable pessimism about the prospects for both productivity and overall economic growth in the U.S. economy, based either on the idea that the pace of innovation has slowed or on concern that innovation today is hurting job creation. While recognizing the problems facing the economy, this paper offers a more optimistic view of both innovation and future growth, a potential return to the innovation and employment-led growth of the 1990s. Technological opportunities remain strong in advanced manufacturing and the energy revolution will spur new investment, not only in energy extraction, but also in the transportation sector and in energy-intensive manufacturing. Education, health care, infrastructure (construction) and government are large sectors of the economy that have lagged behind in productivity growth historically. This is not because of a lack of opportunities for innovation and change but because of a lack of incentives for change and institutional rigidity.
NESTA
Hyper Island is an educational model developed in Sweden which aims to meet the growing needs of the interactive media industry by providing students with the skills, capabilities, personal attributes and professional networks to gain employment in the sector. It is co-designed with industry partners and regularly reviewed with them to ensure that it is relevant and up to date with the opportunities which new technologies afford. This report was commissioned by NESTA to understand the specific features of the Hyper Island approach and whether these provide improved employment opportunities for its students. It has followed the journey of 16 of the students (aged 18-24) from the UK through the program.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP)
This report contradicts the common belief that the seven-county region’s manufacturing heyday is necessarily in the past. While manufacturing employment here did shrink by one-third in the past decade, the data-driven report says, productivity has increased as manufacturers have shifted from labor-intensive, lower-value products to higher-value products that require automation and fewer but higher-skilled workers. Annual manufacturing productivity in the Chicago region is $65 billion and rising, according to the report, and with more than 580,000 jobs, the region has more manufacturing cluster employees than all but one U.S. region. The report includes recommendations for how the region can meet manufacturing challenges by spurring research and development (R&D), workforce development, and transportation investment.
Quebec Seeks Solutions: An Economic Development Agency’s Role in Local Open Innovation
Alexandra Berger Masson, Technology Innovation Management Review
This article offers an economic-development perspective on a new method for local companies to find innovative solutions to their most challenging business problems: local open innovation. Quebec International, the economic development agency for the Quebec City area, contributed to the development of the Seeking Solutions approach to local open innovation, which included the hosting of problem-solving conferences with local research centres, economic development actors, and companies. Looking back on these experiences and outcomes since 2010, this article shows how the development and introduction of this new approach to local open innovation has changed the rules of the game in the region.
Staying on Track: Sustaining Toronto’s Momentum After the Global Recession
TD Economics
It has not been perfectly smooth sailing for Toronto region’s economy since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008-09. Still, Canada’s largest urban region (which includes the Greater Toronto Area and the City of Hamilton) has exhibited a degree of strength and stability that has made waves internationally. In particular, gains in employment and living standards have far outstripped those of most competing large North American city-regions. Moreover, most parts of the Toronto region economy have contributed to the relative strength, led by the City of Toronto, which enjoyed a steady inflow of young, highly-skilled workers to its downtown core. Looking ahead, the big task at hand for leaders in the Toronto region is sustaining this forward momentum amid a number of significant longer-term challenges to growth and prosperity. The report highlights seven key structural issues, which have received varying levels of regional attention and progress in recent years.
Statistics & Indicators
Does Venture Capital Really Foster Innovation?
Ana Paula Faria and Natalia Barbosa
Using panel data of 17 European Union countries, the authors find robust empirical support for a positive impact of venture capital on innovation. After controlling for the potential endogenous relationship between venture capital and innovation, the results indicate that venture capital fosters innovation but mainly in a later stages of development.
Global Information Technology Report
World Economic Forum
Despite efforts in the past decade to improve information and communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure in developing economies, there remains a new digital divide in how countries harness ICT to deliver competitiveness and well-being. Published under the theme, Growth and Jobs in a Hyperconnected World, the report suggests that national policies in some developing economies are failing to translate ICT investment into tangible benefits in terms of competitiveness, development and employment. This is in addition to the profound digital divide that already exists between advanced and developing economies in access to digital infrastructure and content. The report’s Networked Readiness Index (NRI), which measures the capacity of 144 economies to leverage ICT for growth and well-being, finds Finland (1st), Singapore (2nd) and Sweden (3rd) take the top three places. The Netherlands (4th), Norway (5th), Switzerland (6th), the United Kingdom (7th), Denmark (8th), the United States (9th), and Taiwan, China (10th) complete the top 10.
Policy Digest
City of Vancouver Digital Strategy
City of Vancouver, B.C.
This strategy establishes a four-year roadmap and nine leading priorities, including expanded open data access, more communication and engagement through digital tools, and expanding digital access throughout the city. Action items include expanding free wi-fi access in City facilities and key public destinations and establishing an incubation program to recruit and retain digital talent and investment in Vancouver.
The Vision
Enhance multidirectional digital connections amongst citizen, employees, business and government.
In defining the focus areas of the Digital Strategy, the City looked first to it’s goals and then to other digital strategies by leading cities including New York and Chicago. Using this lens, 3 pillars were formed that are primarily outward facing – to citizens and businesses – supported by the 4th pillar – focused on the City as a digital organization.
Pillar 1: Engagement + Access
How the City and it’s constituents engage with each other, through transactional service delivery, collaboration and communication. The digital divide is the other aspect of this focus area – access to technology and education to increase digital literacy.
Pillar 2: Infrastructure & Assets
Focuses on digital infrastructure and assets. This includes below and above ground physical assets such as conduit, fibre, and poles. Digital assets include software, hardware and data.
Pillar 3: Economy
Focuses on the digital economy with respect to supporting growth in the digital sector and enabling all businesses to benefit from digital infrastructure and digital services offered by the City.
Pillar 4: Organizational Digital Maturity
This encompasses digital governance, enabling City employees with tools that foster both a digital culture and encourages innovation.
Intensive comparative analysis and community outreach led to the proposal of the following Digital Initiatives.
Digital Initiatives
Engagement + Access
1. Enable City services across digital platforms;
2. Expand the open data program;
3. Promote digital activity through communications and engagement tools.
Infrastructure and Assets
4. Expand digital access throughout the city.
Economy
5. Establish a digital incubation program;
6. Create a favourable regulatory environment that supports digital industry;
7. With community and industry patners, support an agile proof of concept program.
Organizational Digital Maturity
8. Establish digital services governance;
9. Implement mobile workforce strategy.
While the priority for the City over the next 4 years is focused on the preceding 9 initiatives, there are additional key projects and actions that will need to be pursued as funding becomes available and partners emerge in order to more substantially move the dial on digital maturity.
Additional Initiatives
Engagement + Acces
- Expand the Vancouver Public Library digital literacy program
- Continue to prepare for and create opportunity for online voting
Infrastructure & Assets
- Continue to evolve the City’s digital infrastructure strategy
Economy
- Through VEC, continue to foster digital talent strategy
Organizational Digital Maturity
- Work towards an enterprise portal
- Develop the City’s digital workforce
Events
RBC Conference – Global Innovation: Going Broad, Going Deep
Toronto, 25 April, 2013
Four session tackle important questions about global innovation: (1) Innovation in a Changing Economy: A Global or Local Phenomenon?; (2) Poverty, Invisibility and Innovation: Rethinking the Innovation Agenda; (3) Behaviourally Informed Innovation; (4) Tow Solitudes: Innovation and Development Assistance. Janice Stein, Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs, is the keynote speaker for the 2013 RBC Conference, presented by the RBC Chair in Public and Economic Policy and the RBC Chair in Applied Social Work. Other speakers include David Wolfe, RBC Chair in Public and Economic Policy, Joe Wong, Director of the Asian Institute, and Dilip Soman, Corus Chair in Communication Strategy.
AAAS Forum on Science and Technology
Washington, DC, 2-3 May, 2013
The annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy, now in its 38th year, is the conference for people interested in public policy issues facing the science, engineering, and higher education communities. It is the place where insiders go to learn what is happening and what is likely to happen in the coming year on the federal budget and the growing number of policy issues that affect researchers and their institutions. Come to the Forum, learn about the future of S&T policy, and engage with the people who will shape it.
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.
2nd European Colloquium on Culture, Creativity and the Economy 
Berlin, Germany, 10-11 October, 2013
During the past decades myriad links between culture, creativity and economic practice have become major topics of interdisciplinary debates. No longer restricted to a few sectors, there is a growing consensus that the intersections between these spheres and symbolic and culturally embedded values in particular, pervade the global economy. Indeed, the formerly distinct logics of the cultural and the economic have become increasingly indiscernible. Similarly, the notion of creativity, once used to express exceptional talent, activities and outcomes, is now considered a key component to success in all fields of economic activity. At the same time, the Internet has revolutionized the conditions under which cultural production and distribution as well as creative collaboration can be undertaken. Despite the high degree of uncertainty about future developments, policy makers as well as business managers are highly optimistic, if not enthusiastic, about the ability of symbolic values and creativity to drive sustained economic growth and regional development. This colloquium will take up and continue an international and interdisciplinary debate on these topics.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.