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
Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, October 8, 2014 – 12pm-2pm
Significant attention has been directed to the processes of knowledge production in a spatial context, but little consideration has been given to the type of technological knowledge produced within specific places. The objectives of the present research project are to map the US/EU15 technology/knowledge space, to examine the evolution of that space over the time period 1981–2005, and to investigate the character of knowledge cores within US cities and European regions. The results confirm that over time cities and regions tend to specialize in technology classes that are located close to one another in the technology space, but they also reveal considerable heterogeneity in measures of technological specialization across US metropolitan areas and European Regions.
Government of Canada
Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME), in partnership with Export Development Canada (EDC), recently announced the launch of the Enterprise Canada Network, a website that connects Canadian companies to international partners seeking matching products and services. The new website is geared towards the needs of small– to medium–sized companies, whose main challenges are the time to develop opportunities and not knowing where to look for them. ECN will allow SMEs and researchers in Canada to search for a business or technology partner amongst more than 30,000 opportunity profiles posted through the European Commission’s Enterprise Europe Network. ECN also provides users with several convenient tools that allow them to easily find all publicly funded trade support and promotion programs from across Canada.
Editor's Pick
U.S. Cluster Mapping Website Now Live
U.S. Cluster Mapping
“The U.S. Cluster Mapping project is used by government, economic developers and businesses to understand and shape the competitive landscape for a wide variety of industries. These data are being put in the hands of local officials, who are using the information to make strategic investments, recruit new companies, and lay the groundwork for new industries. Across the country our cluster mapping tool gives us the ability to reinvent and modernize economic development strategies – all driven by open data.”
— U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Prtizker.
Innovation Policy
OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: Netherlands 2014
OECD
This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the innovation system of the Netherlands, focusing on the role of government and including concrete recommendations on how to improve policies that affect innovation and R&D performance.
Restoring the Foundation: The Vital Role of Research in Preserving the American Dream
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
As American spending on research relative to GDP dwindles, the system that generated America’s economic prosperity over the past century has begun to fall apart, according to this new report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy calls the disintegration of the U.S.’s national innovation system the key threat to American prosperity. The authors propose several strategies to address the issue, including renewed federal investment in basic research, policy solutions to ensure that the benefits of R&D are maximized and widespread, and strengthening government-industry-university partnerships.
Employment and Skills Strategies in the United States
OECD
How to stimulate growth and support job creation are two critical challenges that countries confront following the global financial crisis. The Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme of the OECD has developed international cross-comparative reviews on local job creation policies to examine the contribution of local labour market policy to boosting quality employment. Each country review examines the capacity of employment services and training providers to contribute to a long-term strategy which strengthens the resiliency of the local economy, increases skills levels and job quality. This report looks at the range of institutions and bodies involved in workforce and skills development in two states – California and Michigan. In-depth fieldwork focused on two local Workforce Investment Boards in each state: the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency (SETA); the Northern Rural and Training and Employment Consortium (NoRTEC); the Southeast Michigan Community Alliance (SEMCA); and the Great Lakes Bay Michigan Works. The report concludes with a number of recommendations and actions to promote job creation at the federal, state and local levels.
Driving Unconventional Growth Through the Industrial Internet of Things
Accenture
The Industrial Internet of Things represents a tremendous opportunity for innovative companies looking to unlock new revenue sources by packaging their products with new digital services according to this report. Combining sensor-driven computing, industrial analytics and intelligent machine applications into a single universe of connected intelligent industrial products, processes and services, the Industrial Internet of Things generates data essential for developing corporate operational efficiency strategies. However, the Accenture report finds that the Industrial Internet of Things also provides a rich opportunity to drive revenue growth through new, innovative and augmented services for a rapidly expanding marketplace.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Going Local: Connecting the National Labs to their Regions for Innovation and Growth
Scott Andes, Mark Muro and Matthew Stepp, The Brookings Institution
Since their inception in the 1940s, the Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories have been in the vanguard of America’s global research and development leadership. However, the U.S. national innovation system has changed in the past 70 years. Today, much technology development and application occurs in the context of synergistic regional clusters of firms, trade associations, educational institutions, private labs, and regional economic development organizations. Unfortunately, legacy operating procedures limit the DOE labs’ ability to engage fully with the regional economies in which they are located. This lack of consistent engagement with regional technology clusters has likely limited the labs’ overall contributions to U.S. economic growth.
Statistics & Indicators
The Divided City and the Shape of the New Metropolis
Richard Florida, Martin Prosperity Institute
This report finds America’s cities and metro areas to be strikingly divided by class. The report, released to the City Lab Conference of Mayors and City Leaders in Los Angeles, maps the stark class divisions within 12 of America’s largest cities and metro areas (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Detroit). Americans, it finds, are not only separated by income and race, but by socio-economic class. Utilizing tract level data from the U.S. Census 2010 American Community Survey, the study charts the residential locations of the knowledge-based creative class; the services sector (which includes people who work in food preparation, retail sales, personal services and in clerical/ administrative functions); and the blue-collar working class (those with jobs in construction, manufacturing, and transportation). The locational decisions of the affluent creative class are reshaping America’s economic geography-and pushing the other two classes to the peripheries.
Capturing Change in Science, Technology and Innovation: Improving Indicators to Inform Policy
The National Academies Press
This report assesses and provides recommendations regarding the need for revised, refocused, and newly developed indicators of STI activities that would enable the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) within the National Science Foundation (NSF) to respond to changing policy concerns. This report also identifies and assesses both existing and potential data resources and tools that NCSES could exploit to further develop its indicators program. Finally, the report considers strategic pathways for NCSES to move forward with an improved STI indicators program. The recommendations offered in this report are intended to serve as the basis for a strategic program of work that will enhance NCSES’s ability to produce indicators that capture change in science, technology, and innovation to inform policy and optimally meet the needs of its user community.
Policy Digest
Illinois Science and Technology Roadmap
Illinois Innovation Network
The report provides unprecedented understanding of Illinois’ research strengths, the commercial potential of the state’s intellectual property, and the opportunities to build mutually beneficial partnerships between academic and industry talent to drive technology innovation and commercialization. Discussion of the six technology clusters highlighted in the Roadmap pinpoint policy and program recommendations that will help harness research and development as the state’s economic engine.
The technology cluster network analysis in Part II of the roadmap revealed three cross- cutting areas where policies and funding can have broad impact. To maximize technology development and commercialization, the state should pursue several policy and programming initiatives that would enable these technology clusters to reach their full potential.
1. Driving connectivity between industry and academia
-
Establish a network of university corporate relations staff to coordinate and centralize industry engagement around collective strengths and share best practices on models of collaboration;
-
Develop a technical assistance program to offset costs for small businesses to access academic facilities and talent;
-
Expand the Illinois Corporate–Startup Challenge to support corporate innovation and pilot and validate university-derived technologies;
-
Connect the state’s innovation hubs to exchange best practices on operating models and content delivery.
2. Assisting high-potential technologies and startups
-
Extend proof-of-concept programs, which test pre-company technologies against commercial milestones;
-
Reestablish the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) match program to accelerate growth of vetted federal award recipients;
-
Develop a PhD Fellowship program to harness the expertise of the state’s top talent to help validate technologies toward commercial applications;
-
Reduce costs for university-based tech startups.
3. Ensuring resources for capital infrastructure needs
-
Continue to invest in place-based innovation spaces to expand connections between inventors, business development support, and investors;
-
Enhance R&D infrastructure to position Illinois as a magnet for top talent and federal and industry R&D investments;
-
Increase matching funds for large federal grants and other partnerships to catalyze Illinois consortia for high-impact public-private partnership opportunities such as those secured by DMDII and JCESR, which position Illinois as the national innovation hub for key technologies and industries.
Events
OPEN DAYS – 12th Week of Regions and Cities
Brussels, Belgium, 6-9 October, 2014
The OPEN DAYS is an annual four-day event during which cities and regions showcase their capacity to create growth and jobs, implement European Union cohesion policy, and prove the importance of the local and regional level for good European governance. The event is organised by the EU Committee of the Regions and the European Commission’s DG for Regional Policy. This free event will again attract around 6,000 participants and features a variety of sessions, workshops and networking events.
Waterloo Region, 9-10 October, 2014
The greatest global trend of our times is the movement of people to urban areas. Equally transformative is the rise of the connected digital/creative economy, which is causing people and business to reassess traditional models of work and life. In an era of increasing connectivity, it is what might be called the node-city phenomenon. Smart design and planning, arts and culture and research institutions are some of the essential elements to attract the required human and financial capital for mid-size cities to fulfill this exciting new possibility. The Waterloo Region — recently praised as a model of entrepreneurial growth and innovation — is an ideal platform to explore this important development in the business of city building. The second edition of CityAge: The Innovation City will gather city builders from across North America and beyond on October 9 and 10 to review the opportunities and challenges of this important urban trend. The event will address the intersection of modern city-building and the innovation economy, and how 21st century cities can position themselves to thrive in the 21st Century economy.
European Cluster Conference 2014
Brussels, Belgium, 20-21 October, 2014
The prosperity of the European Union relies on its ability to provide SMEs and industry with a favourable business environment and customised support to unlock growth opportunities. Stimulating cross-sectoral cooperation and innovation as well as helping SMEs to access finance, new industrial value chains and to go international are seen as key drivers. The potential of clusters and cluster organisations, notably in emerging industries, need to be better exploited to achieve this objective. The question of how to do this and how to team up with others will be at the core of this conference. Conference sessions will include plenary speeches, panel discussions and innovative participatory group discussions and priority setting by the audience. It will be an inspiring event not to be missed and ensure that the cluster community actively contributes to the design of excellent cluster policies and better SME support.
Creating Shared Value Through Clusters for a Sustainable Future 
Monterrey, Mexico, 10-13 November, 2014
The agenda will focus on the potential of clusters to contribute to the creation of value for a sustainable and viable future, with over 80 international practitioners and academics sharing their latest work and research around this topic. The conference offers a unique opportunity to meet your peers from around the world and exchange good practices.
CFP – National Systems of Entrepreneurship
Mannheim, Germany, 20-21 November, 2014
National Systems of Entrepreneurship (NSE) are fundamental resource allocation systems driven by opportunity pursuit of individuals through the creation of new ventures. In contrast to the institutional emphasis of the National Systems of Innovation (NSI) frameworks, NSE are driven by individuals who act within and interact with an institutional frame. This approach differs from traditional entrepreneurship research, where institutions are largely silent. The aim of this conference is to discuss recent scientific contributions on issues related to NSE, the comparison of NSI with NSE, as well as institutional, legal, and national developments on entrepreneurship.
CFP: The Global City, Past and Present
St. Andrews, Scotland, 14-15 May, 2015
This first Call for Papers invites submissions from scholars of all humanities and social science disciplines working on the issue of “Space” in the early modern colonial city and its modern descendants. At the intersection of empires, cultures, and economies, urban spaces and structures were, and continue to be, shaped by the cities’ global connections. Through an exploration of all aspects of the urban built environment, the workshop will start a conversation between scholars working on the spatial characteristics of those cities that first rose to prominence in the early modern imperial world.
Subscriptions & Comments
Please forward this newsletter to anyone you think will find it of value. We look forward to collaborating with you on this initiative. If you would like to comment on, or contribute to, the content, subscribe or unsubscribe, please contact us at ipl.munkschool@utoronto.ca.
This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.