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 Announces Support to Grow Competitive Start-Up Businesses and High Quality Jobs
NRCC
The Government of Canada recently announced an investment in Invest Ottawa, in collaboration with Wesley Clover and PARTEQ Innovations, to support Ottawa and Eastern Ontario’s innovative businesses, enabling them to grow, prosper and create jobs. Through the Canada Accelerator and Incubator Program (CAIP), Invest Ottawa and collaborators Wesley Clover, PARTEQ Innovations will receive up to $7.7 million in funding over the next five years to provide local entrepreneurs with the resources and expertise needed to develop their business plan, seek follow-on financing, and establish new international markets for products and services. These organizations plays an important role in preparing early stage companies for successfully accessing investment capital and serves as an invaluable resource for entrepreneurs in developing competitive products and services, which support creating Canadian jobs at home.
New University of Michigan Institute to Measure Impact of University Research
University of Michigan News
Government, industry and foundations spend more than $65 billion each year on research at the nation’s universities. The University of Michigan has launched a new initiative at the U-M Institute for Social Research that will coordinate efforts from across the country to provide rigorous measures of the impact of this investment on the economy as well as on scientific progress. The new Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS), which officially starts up in January 2015, is a national collaborative that will build the data and tools that will allow researchers, government agencies, policymakers and others to better understand such areas as: the contributions of university research teams; economic trajectories of university researchers in new or existing companies; the economic impact on vendors who supply products to universities; and job creation.
SSTI Weekly Digest
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) released a federal funding opportunity (FFO) to establish an Integrated Photonics Institute for Manufacturing Innovation (IP-IMI). Administered by the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Integrated Photonics Institute will assist in developing an end-to-end photonics ecosystem in the U.S. and support photonics-focused research and development efforts across the country. DOD requires a 1:1 match in private funds by the awardee – an over $220 million commitment from federal and private resources. Lead applicant eligibility is restricted to nonprofit organizations. However, applicants are encouraged to establish a regional consortium that includes members from academia, government and industry.
China Poised to Outpace the US in R&D Spending Around 2019
OECD
Squeezed budgets in the EU, US and Japan are reducing the weight of advanced economies in science and technology research and leaving China on track to be the world’s top R&D spender by around 2019. The OECD Science, Technology and Industry Outlook 2014 finds that with R&D spending by most OECD governments and businesses yet to recover from the economic crisis, the OECD’s share in global R&D spending has slipped from 90% to 70% in a decade. The report warns that with public finances still tight in many countries, the ability of governments to compensate for lower business R&D with public funding, as they did during the worst of the economic downturn, has become more limited.
Editor's Pick
The Future of Cities: The Internet of Everything Will Change How We Live
John Chambers and Wim Elfrink, Foreign Affairs
That next phase of Internet development, which some call the Internet of Everything, is the intelligent connection of people, processes, data, and things. The things that are—and will be—connected aren’t just traditional devices, such as computers, tablets, and phones, but also parking spaces and alarm clocks, railroad tracks, street lights, garbage cans, and components of jet engines. All of these connections are already generating massive amounts of digital data—and it doubles every two years. New tools will collect and share that data (some 15,000 applications are developed each week!) and, with analytics, that can be turned into information, intelligence, and even wisdom, enabling everyone to make better decisions, be more productive, and have more enriching experiences. This year signals a major inflection point for the Internet of Everything, which will have a much bigger impact on the world and its cities than the Internet did in its first 20 years. The Internet of Everything is already revolutionizing the way our cities operate, creating a more dynamic global economy and also bringing new, richer experiences to citizens.
Innovation Policy
Innovation Accelerators: Defining Characteristics Among Startup Assistance Organizations
C. Scott Dempwolf et al, SBA
This study creates a taxonomy of startup assistance organizations and provides a working definition of an innovation accelerator that departs from those found in the existing literature. Previous definitions have highlighted accelerators’ services and focus on software applications as key characteristics of the definition. The proposed taxonomy distinguishes accelerators from other startup assistance organizations based on the organization’s value proposition and business model, both of which are influenced significantly by the accelerator’s technology focus and the founder’s motivation for starting. Through this taxonomy, three categories of startup assistance organizations are identified: (1) incubators and venture development organizations, (2) proof-of-concept centers, and (3) accelerators. Accelerators are further subdivided into social accelerators, university accelerators, corporate
accelerators, and innovation accelerators. Further, this study discusses the metrics that should and could be measured according to the taxonomy and the definition proposed, and concludes that metrics designed to look for long-term outcomes provide the most appropriate assessment of accelerator performance.
Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda
Government of Australia
The Government through its Economic Action Strategy is refocusing government, revitalizing Australia’s businesses and entrepreneurial drive, and equipping the economy for the challenges ahead, to prevent Australia’s economy from drifting. The Government’s vision is of a nimble economy, capitalizing on Australia’s strengths. Central to this vision is the need for strong and self-reliant Australian businesses: large and small; international, national, regional and local; exporters, importers and domestic suppliers; in resources, services, manufacturing and agriculture. It is only through businesses and industries that are able to compete successfully on their own merits that the jobs and prosperity of the future can be secured. The fundamental aim of the Government’s Economic Action Strategy is to provide a competitive environment that allows businesses to create the jobs and prosperity needed for strong, secure communities and to maintain high living standards in Australia. This will also provide the capacity to address genuine social and environmental needs in ways that can be sustained in the future.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Endeavor Insight
This report attempts to use key findings in the city’s media tech space as both a diagnostic and prescription of where Silicon Alley stands and how it can grow. By polling almost 700 local startups over the past year, Endeavor found that while the Alley still lags behind Silicon Valley in many key categories, its growth has been meteoric and the dense, urban landscape of the five boroughs is as much a weapon as it is an obstacle. But the study does reveal some interesting numbers about the size and power of Silicon Alley. According to the report, the city’s tech sector grew twice as quickly as Silicon Valley’s in pure terms of dollars invested between 2003 and 2013. Over that 10-year period, venture funding of New York media tech firms grew by 240%, helping to create 86% of the jobs that the industry supports today. That connectedness between Big Apple techies is a function of urban density and the city’s frenetic business environment, a reality that the study found to be a positive, despite the high costs of scaling a business inside the expensive confines of New York’s city limits.
Life Science Innovation Capital in Indiana
Batelle Technology Partnership Practice
This report takes an in-depth look at Indiana’s capital market and the innovation outputs that have resulted over two different time frames: 1993 to 2002 and 2003 to 2013. It also provides a view of future opportunities for investment growth. The report shows gains in innovation dollars as well as an increase in life sciences innovation capital that outpaced the nation between 2003 and 2013. Findings point to multiple contributors to Indiana’s capital markets—the State, universities, industry, philanthropy, angel investors, and groups like BioCrossroads—who all advanced targeted strategies to advance growth.
Statistics & Indicators
Federal Support for Science, Engineering at U.S. Universities, FY 2001-11
SSTI Weekly Digest
Federal funds for science and engineering at American universities grew steadily from 2001 to 2008, jumped in 2009 and 2010 due to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), and more or less returned to its original trajectory in 2011, according to survey data from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Federal S&E funding in most states followed a similar pattern. A few states, including Minnesota and Delaware, managed to sustain their level of federal S&E support after the Recovery Act funds ceased. In fact, Delaware increased its funding at a higher rate than any other state during the 2001-11 period, becoming the only state to more than double its level of federal support.
On Scaling Scientific Knowledge Production in U.S. Metropolitan Areas
Onder Nomaler, Koen Frenken and Gaston Heimeriks
Using data on all scientific publications from the Scopus database, the researchers find a superlinear scaling effect for U.S. metropolitan areas as indicated by the increase of per capita publication output with city size. They also find that the variance of residuals is much higher for mid-sized cities (100,000 to 500,000 inhabitants) compared to larger cities. The latter result is indicative of the critical mass required to establish a scientific center in a particular discipline. Finally, they observe that the largest cities publish much less than the scaling law would predict, indicating that the largest cities are relatively unattractive locations for scientific research.
Policy Digest
Hermann Hauser
The Catapult Network was established by Innovate UK in 2013 to drive economic growth along seven, soon to be nine, specific industry areas and are comprised of business-focused technology and innovation centers that connect businesses with access to world-leading technology and expertise. Innovate UK is the new name of what was once the Technology Strategy Board, the government’s arm for promoting innovation-based economic development. Representing over £1.4 billion ($2.2 billion USD) of private and public sector investment over the next five years. Seven centres are currently operating in fiels of high value manufacturing, cell therapy, offshore renewable energy, satellite applications, connected digital economy, future cities and transport systems. The current report contains nine key recomendations aimed at strengthening the existing network.
Catapults 101
The March 2010 report, The Current and Future Role of Technology & Innovation Centres in the UK, highlighted the need for the UK to close the critical gap between research findings and their subsequent development into commercial propositions. It made a case for long-term UK investment in a network of technology and innovation centres, based on best practice in other countries, such as the Fraunhofer Institutes in Germany and TNO in the Netherlands, to ‘deliver a step change in the UK’s ability to commercialize its research’. The rationale and arguments for such an infrastructure were reinforced by Sir James Dyson in his 2010 report Ingenious Britain.
The two reports argued that such centres were required to provide business with access to the best technical expertise, infrastructure, skills and equipment. They would create a new framework for long-term investment and joint working between business and the UK research base, complementing the other programmes and resources available to stimulate innovation, harness the UK’s strengths, build capacity and generate the critical mass needed to compete effectively in global value chains and high growth markets.
In Autumn 2010, the UK Coalition Government provided additional funding worth over £200 million to Innovate UK to establish seven Catapults over the four-year spending review period from 2011 to 2015. The role of the centres would be to:
• enhance business access to leading-edge technology and expertise
• reach into the research base for world-leading science and engineering
• undertake collaborative applied research projects with business
• undertake contract research for business
• be strongly business-focused with a highly professional delivery ethos
• create a critical mass of activity between business and research institutions
• provide skills development at all levels
The seven Catapults were established guided by five criteria:
- The existence of potential global markets which could be accessed through the center and are predicted to be worth billions of pounds per annum;
- World-leading research capability in the area in the UK;
- UK business ability to exploit the technology and make use of increased investment to capture a signficant share of the value chain and embed the activity in the UK;
- Potential for the centre to enable the UK to attract and anchor the knowledge-intensive activities of globally mobile companies and secure sustainable wealth creation for the UK;
- Close alignment with national strategic priorities.
In 2014 the Business Secretary, Dr Vince Cable and the Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts commissioned this review of the progress made by the Catapult network since the 2010 report and the potential scope and scale of the network in the future. An online consultation resulted in 65 written responses, and stakeholders were consulted at events across the UK. Visits also took place to many of the Catapult locations to meet with all the senior management teams and several independent Board members.
These events and meetings highlighted that whilst many Catapults are at an early stage of their development there is good progress and engagement by both academic partners and business into the work of the Catapults. Throughout this report there are case studies from each of the centres. The results of that consultation are reflected in the recommendations made in this report.
Recommendations
1. The UK must maintain its focus and commitment to investing in the existing Catapults, subject to effective performance and relevance, over the long term;
2. In keeping with international best practice, public sector funding must be prioritized to maintain the current 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 funding model for existing Catapults;
3. Innovate UK should grow the network of Catapults through a clear and transparent process, based on the current criteria, at no more than 1-2 centres per year, with a view to having 30 Catapults by 2030 with total core funding for the nework of £400 million per annum;
4. Growth of the Catapult budget requires increased funding for Innovate UK in line with recent calls to double UK Innovation spending, bringing the budget closer to £1 billion per annum by 2020, such that it can explore and invest in a wider portfolio of emerging opportunities and support the most promising areas at scale;
5. Each Catapult should work with Innovate UK to develop more effective SME engagement strategies. Approaches should include working with local authorities and business groups to reach potential high growth SMEs and important clusters of activity in regions across the UK;
6. Catapults should develop a stronger, more coherent, engagement model for working with Universities (national and international), building on best practice, with a view to drawing on and commercialization knowledge to help UK industry gain competitive advantage;
7. Innovate UK and the Catapults should work together to develop more sophisticated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that sit within Catapult’s Grant Funding Agreements, that incentivize impact and engagement with industry whilst still ensuring that Catapults work ahead of the market. These should reflect the difference in ht esectors and the maturity of of the relevant centres;
8. Once established, Catapults should take advantage of their role as a neutral convenor to identify and help address wider barriers to innovation and commercialization, and work with relevant parties to inform and deliver solutions. These could include regulartory and non-technological barrierrs such as business models and skills requirements;
9. The government should ensure that the “Catapult process” developed by Innovate UK is used when deciding whether a business-led, physical infrastructure based initiative should be supported.
Events
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.
Boosting Academic Entrepreneurship
Enschede, the Netherlands, 10-12 December, 2014
The Technopolicy Network is thrilled about the upcoming 12th annual Academic Entrepreneurship Conference and Awards. For this Conference, 30 leading experts have already confirmed that they will present on how universities, incubators and regional governments can boost academic entrepreneurship together with businesses in their region. Regional innovation hotspots from Silicon Valley, Beijing, Boston, Skolkovo and Finland will be presented by their strategists.
Aalborg, Denmark, 21-23 January, 2015
The conference is open for all PhD students working within the broad field of economics and management of innovation, entrepreneurship and organizations. 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 encourage all PhD students to submit their research to the conference. Do not hesitate to apply even if you have not been in contact with DRUID previously.
2nd Doctoral Workshop in Econiomics of Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge
Turin, Italy, 29-30 January, 2015
The aim of the workshop is to bring together PhD students from all over the world working in the broad field of Economics of Innovation and Complexity. The workshop will provide participants with a great opporunity to network with peers researching on similar topics and to receive feedback from both junior and senior scholars. We invite PhD students in their 2nd and 3rd years to submit their extended abstracts.
CFP: Challenges for the New Cohesion Policy in 2014-2020: An Academic and Policy Debate 
Riga, Latvia, 4-6 February, 2015
In 2013, the budgetary and regulatory reform of Cohesion policy for 2014-20 was finally concluded following the most extensive process of reflection, consultation and analysis in the history of the policy. The cornerstones of the reformed policy are a more strategic use of the renamed European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), concentration of spending on the objectives of Europe 2020, improved performance and achievement of results, better governance, and more attention to urban and local development. However, as the recently published Sixth Cohesion Report makes clear, the new ESIF programmes face a difficult task, with increasing regional and urban disparities and cuts in government spending. Against this background, the Second EU Cohesion Policy Conference organised by the RSA and DG Regio, together with the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, aims to take stock of the challenges and opportunities for Cohesion policy in 2014-20. It will bring together a limited number of participants from academia, the European institutions and Member State authorities to debate where Cohesion policy is going and how its contribution to growth and jobs can be maximized.
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.
Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy
Atlanta, Georgia, 17-19 September, 2015
The Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy provides a showcase for the highest quality scholarship addressing the multidimensional challenges and interrelated characteristics of science and innovation policy and processes. The conference attracts over 300 researchers from more than 35 countries and includes a series of plenary talks; parallel paper sessions to discuss ongoing research; and a young researcher poster competition. Next year’s session will explore the research front addressing the broad range of issues central to the structure, function, performance and outcomes of the science and innovation enterprises.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.