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
Government of Canada Celebrates the Launch of an Advanced Manufacturing Research Network
Government of Canada
The launch of the Refined Manufacturing Acceleration Process (ReMAP) network was recently celebrated by the Government of Canada. ReMAP was awarded $7.7 million over five years through the Business-Led Networks of Centres of Excellence (BL-NCE) program. The funding will support ReMAP’s mission to bring together academic partners, research organizations and a wide range of companies to work on research and development (R&D) projects to develop technologies to benefit the electronics sector. ReMAP will help Canadian electronics manufacturers to compete globally by offering tools to bring innovative products to market faster.
CANARIE
CANARIE, a vital component of Canada’s digital infrastructure supporting research, education and innovation, today announced a further $2.4M in investment in eight new Software Platforms and Services. These new projects enable Canadian scientists to analyze, visualize and share immense volumes of research data, transforming data into knowledge and insight that contribute to Canada’s economic and social development.
White House Enlists Makers, Cities to Spur National Manufacturing Economy
SSTI Weekly Digest
The White House recently hosted its first Maker Faire where President Obama announced a number of new public-private collaborative efforts to spur U.S. manufacturing entrepreneurship. In order to capitalize on the recent spike in manufacturing entrepreneurship, the administration is enlisting more than 90 mayors and local leaders to make new spaces available for manufacturing and prototyping. The White House also plans to make it easier for entrepreneurs to access federally owned equipment for research and production, expand federal agency support for smaller manufacturers and invest $150 million in advanced materials research. The mayors recognized by the president are part of the Mayors Maker Challenge, a recent initiative spearheaded by the Manufacturing Alliance of Communities. The challenge asked mayors from around the country to pledge to support the emerging Maker Movement, a trend that makes use of new, affordable manufacturing technologies to help citizens become inventors and entrepreneurs. Mayors and local leaders can support this movement by making spaces and equipment available for research, development and prototyping. The pledge also asks mayors to support STEM education and entrepreneurship programs that help spur local and national innovation. For the federal government’s part, the administration plans to make more than $5 billion worth of equipment from federal R&D facilities available to makers and local maker spaces.
Eight States Agree to Promote Electric Vehicles
Governing
Governors from eight states signed an agreement on May 29 outlining a strategy for putting more electric vehicles on the roads. The 11-point plan provides a menu of activities each state can choose from to meet the broader goal of putting 3.3 million zero-emission vehicles on American roadways by 2025. California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont signed the agreement. Together, the eight states involved in the EV action plan represent about a quarter of the new vehicle market in the U.S.
Editor's Pick
Understanding the U.S. National Innovation System
Robert D. Atkinson, ITIF
This report identifies the broad elements that make up a national innovation system, including a description of the innovation success triangle, which measures the business environment, regulatory environment, and innovation environment of a nation, and is used to predict the success of an innovation system in promoting technological development and economic growth. It then uses this framework to analyze the U.S. national innovation system and assess the strengths and weaknesses of individual components and whether those components are improving, stable or deteriorating relative to our competitors. Unfortunately, in many areas the U.S. national innovation system falls behind its global competitors, hampering its ability to foster the innovation that is imperative for success in the 21st century economy. As nations compete to win the global innovation race, the effectiveness of their national innovation systems will be a key factor in deciding the winners and the losers. Thus, the challenge for the United States going forward is whether it can make the needed changes to its innovation system to keep up with the international innovation leaders and remain a key player in the innovation economy. The future health of the nation will depend on the answer.
Innovation Policy
Employment and Skills Strategies in Canada
OECD
This report delivers evidence-based and practical recommendations on how to better support employment and economic development in Canada. It builds on sub-national data analysis and consultations with local stakeholders in four case study areas across Ontario and Quebec. It provides a comparative framework to understand the role of the local level in contributing to more and better quality jobs. The report can help federal, provincial, local policy makers in Canada build effective and sustainable partnerships at the local level, which join-up efforts and achieve stronger outcomes across employment, training, and economic development policies. Co-ordinated policies can help workers find suitable jobs, while also stimulating entrepreneurship and productivity, which increases the quality of life and prosperity within a community as well as throughout the country.
State of the Innovation Union – Taking Stock 2010-2014
European Commission
The Innovation Union was placed at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy in 2010 with the aim to foster Europe’s capacity to innovate. Innovation is indeed considered essential to preserve and improve Europe’s competitiveness and its ability to create jobs and to tackle societal challenges. Four years after its launch, this Staff Working Document (SWD) takes stock of how it has been implemented and what first results it has delivered. The Innovation Union is building momentum around innovation, mobilising stakeholders and mainstreaming innovation in key European, national and regional policies. Despite a decrease in the overall EU budget for 2014-2020. Also, despite the economic crisis, the Union has made progress towards its R&D investment target of 3 %. This is a clear sign that the EU is prioritising growth and jobs. As a comprehensive strategy, the Innovation Union addresses a wide range of elements that impact Europe’s innovation eco-system and is succeeding in changing it. Excellent progress has been made in delivering on each of the Innovation Union blocks.
Why Invest in Design? Insights from Industry Leaders
Arelene Gould, Kevin Stolarick and Melanie Fasche, Martin Properity Institute
Design is playing an increasingly vital role in innovation, competitiveness and the determination of economic value. However, assessing the impact of design or isolating the design factor can be a challenge for a number of reasons. Design is an enabling discipline, and designers working with professionals from other disciplines add value to the process and to the end result. Design is also a crucial factor in many activities that successful organizations do well, from innovation and new product development, to operations and human resource management, to communications and branding. And like most serious organizational strategies, design is not a quick fix. It requires investment over time and commitment from organizational leaders in order to deliver significant returns. This study aims to increase the appreciation of the role of design and encourage more businesses to use the creativity and problem solving skills of designers to enhance economic, social and environmental outcomes.
Project-Based Funding and Novelty in University Research: Findings from Finland and the UK
Antti Pelkonen, Duncan A. Thomas, and Terttu Luukkonen, ETLA
While societal expectations for university research have grown, university research has become more and more dependent on external funding sources. External funding has substantially increased at Finnish – and also UK – universities, and currently in practice a major share of university research is conducted with external funding. This report communicates the main findings of a study that analysed the use of project-based research funding instruments at universities, most of which are external. The main focus in the study is on the aspects of novelty and creativity in research and the question of the extent to which different research funding instruments promote these aspects of research. Discontinuity and instability of research funding appears as a major challenge for research. There seems to be an overall increase of thematically predefined funding vis-à-vis free researcher-driven funding and close attention should be paid to this balance. Differences between Finland and the UK in terms of novelty generation turned out to be smaller than originally expected.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
FDI in U.S. Metro Areas: The Geography of Jobs in Foreign-Owned Establishments
Devashree Saha, Kenan Fikri and Nick Marchio, The Brookings Institution
This paper advances the understanding of foreign direct investment (FDI) in U.S. metro areas. It presents new data on jobs in foreign-owned establishments (FOEs) across the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas between 1991 and 2011. It finds that foreign owned affiliates employ 5.6 million workers across every sector of the economy and that the nation’s largest metro areas contain nearly three-quarters of all jobs concentrated in FOEs. FDI contributes to and in some cases drives industry specialization in metro areas. These findings together with the existing empirical literature suggest that good FDI policy does not treat FDI attraction as an end in itself but rather regards it as a tool for strengthening industry clusters, infusing new knowledge and technology into U.S. production systems, and increasing global engagement in U.S. regions.
Where Cities and Growing Faster than their Suburbs
Richard Florida, CityLab
Where is growth happening in America: cities or suburbs? For much of the last half-century, growth was a suburban phenomenon. But over the past decade or so, many have noted the comeback of cities and the urban core—a phenomenon Alan Ehrenhalt dubs “the great inversion.” In fact, the question of where growth is centered—in cities or suburbs—has emerged as one of the great dividing lines in the debate over urban America’s future. Recently, Brookings Institution demographer William Frey parsed through the most recent Census data on population growth to dig into this fundamental question. And what he found seems like good news for urbanists and city boosters. Overall, his numbers appear to support the notion of a great inversion from the previous era of mass suburbanization. Between 2010 and 2013, primary city populations have grown faster than their suburbs. But Frey found that this gap appears to have narrowed by 2012-2103. Overall, the primary cities of metros with more than a million people total grew at a rate of 1.02 percent in 2012 to 2013, compared to a rate of 1.13 percent for the year before. Their suburban regions, in contrast, grew 0.96 percent in 2012-2013, about the same as the 0.95 percent growth rate for the previous year.
Statistics & Indicators
OECD Economic Surveys: Canada 2014
OECD
Canada’s economic growth has been fairly solid since the trough of the recession and is projected to remain so. The super cycle in commodity prices has increased incomes most in resource-rich provinces. House prices and household debt have risen to high levels. Considerable progress towards fiscal sustainability has been made but provinces face long-term challenges. Skills shortages have grown in certain fields and regions, which could limit growth going forward. Environmental sustainability and meeting international targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions remain challenges.
OECD Economic Surveys: United States 2014
OECD
The U.S. recovery has spread across a wide array of sectors. Most banks have generally returned to health, housing prices are rising and unemployment has fallen. That said, growth could be bolstered by new reforms of taxes, education, training, immigration and working conditions – all of which could improve the economic prospects of middle-class families. According to this survey, the labour market is not yet back to normal. Unemployment has declined rapidly, but many discouraged workers have stopped looking for a job altogether and many part-timers would like to work longer hours. Finding a job remains challenging, especially for the large number of long-term unemployed. The report encourages close cooperation between businesses and government to tackle these challenges. A key business strategy should be to upgrade the skills of workers as this raises productivity and often leads to higher corporate profits.
Policy Digest
HAPPY CANADA DAY!
Events
DRUID Society Conference 2014: Entrepreneurship-Organization-Innovation
Copenhagen, Denmark, 16-18 June. 2014
he conference will include a number of distinguished plenary presenters and intends to map theoretical, empirical and methodological advances, contribute with novel insights, clarify and develop intellectual positions and help identify common grounds and lines of division in selected current scientific controversies within the field. In 2014, the DRUID Special Flavor will be on Food Innovation. During the last decade, the food industry has seen notable innovation and entrepreneurship throughout its value chain, including, for example, search for original raw materials, adaption of advanced process technologies, exploration of new cooking methods and development of unique restaurant models. DRUID2014 will feature scientific as well as social activities reflecting Food Innovation, including paper sessions on innovation and entrepreneurship in the food industry, talks by leading chefs, and samples of innovative food and drink. With its New Nordic Cuisine, a burst of new Michelin-starred restaurants, and capturing the World’s Best Restaurant as well as Bocuse d’Or awards for several consecutive years, Copenhagen has established itself at the heart of food innovation. In addition, there is a broader movement around the notions of regional and modernist cuisine. The DRUID Society will of course take advantage of its local connections to present conference participants with samples of just how innovative the local food scene can be.
Kevin Morgan: Smart Specialization and the Entrepreneurial State
Toronto, Ontario, 25 June, 2014
The European Union unveiled the most ambitious regional innovation strategy in its history earlier this year when it launched theResearch and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) program. Although it builds on the past, the RIS3 program also aims to break with the past by privileging the “process of entrepreneurial discovery”, a process in which firms, governments, universities and civil society organisations are enjoined to collaborate to fashion more regionally distinctive models of innovation and development. The birth of RIS3 was influenced by a number of recent theories, like the advent of evolutionary economic geography and the social learning approach in innovation studies. The pertinent point , however, is that the RIS3 program makes enormous demands on each of the regional stakeholders, not least the regional state, which is expected to act in more entrepreneurial and experimental ways than ever before. This seminar explores the theory, policy and practice of the RIS3 program and poses the question: are old industrial regions are up to the challenge?
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.