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
Join us for the latest installment of Big City, Big Ideas featuring Michael Storper, Professor of Regional and International Development Director, Global Public Affairs Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA.
In 1970, the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco had almost identical levels of income per resident. In 2010, the San Francisco Bay Area was almost one-third richer than Los Angeles, which had slipped from 4th rank among cities in the USA to 25th. The usual reasons for explaining such change – good or bad luck; different types of immigrants; tax rates, housing costs, and local economic policies; the pool of skilled labor — do not account for why they perform so differently. Instead, the divergence in economic development of major city regions is largely due to the different capacities for organizational change in their firms, networks of people, and networks of leaders. This in-depth study draws on economics, sociology, political science and geography to shed new light on the deep causes of economic development and challenges many conventional notions about development in general and urban regions around the world.
Penn State Launches $30M ‘Invent Penn State’ Initiative
SSTI Weekly Digest
On the heels of an exciting 2014, Innovation Park at Penn State found further cause for encouragement when Penn State president Eric Barron announced the university’s “Invent Penn State” initiative at its January trustees meeting. The $30 million initiative broadly aims to spur economic development by increasing the number of technology business startups in communities where Penn State has campuses, better promote Penn State faculty and student innovations, bring greater awareness to Innovation Park at Penn State and integrate innovation activities into student career success.
Editor's Pick
Competitiveness and Clusters: Implications for a New European Growth Strategy
Christian Ketels, WWWforEurope
This paper develops policy recommendations on the use of cluster-based economic policies and the adoption of a new concept of competitiveness in the context of the new growth path that WWWforEurope aims to outline. A first section discusses summarizes key findings from the previous research papers on the role of clusters in the New Growth Path (MS47) and on a new concept of competitiveness that embeds beyond-GDP objectives (MS46). It then extends this work by deriving an initial set of policy implications from this research. The second section of the paper explores the ways in which beyond-GDP objectives have been integrated into the current practice of cluster-based economic development efforts across Europe. The third section analyses the Europe 2020 Strategy, including its objectives, quantitative performance indicators, and the European Semester as a policy review process, from the perspective of the new definition of competitiveness proposed in MS46. After exploring whether the objectives of the strategy and the new definition of competitiveness are compatible it looks at their ability to drive an effective and transparent policy process towards policies consistent with a New Growth Path. The final section then develops five policy conclusions from the prior analysis. Three are focused on the use of cluster-based economic development tools as instruments to achieve beyond-GDP objectives. The recommendations deal both with the way cluster-based tools can be used and with how they should be structured. Two of the conclusions are focused on the Europe 2020 strategy process. They deal with the need for a shared, explicit definition of competitiveness, proposing the definition developed in MS46 as a candidate. They deal also touch on creating a more transparent policy process that more clearly separates political decisions from analytical evaluations.
Innovation Policy
Life Sciences Ontario Sector Report 2015
Life Sciences Ontario (LSO)
The data compiled in this report points to a significant opportunity. Despite increasing global competition, Ontario’s life sciences sector has grown its economic contributions to Ontario and Canada over the last 10 years. Yet, without action, the sector’s momentum is at risk of stalling. Ontario needs a coordinated economic strategy to support the life sciences sector’s growth and address its key challenges. Doing so will address a significant economic opportunity for the province while also providing deep social benefits to its citizens. A robust life sciences sector is key to Ontario’s future prosperity.
American Innovation Under Structural Erosion and Global Pressures
Dan Steinbock, ITIF
For most of the postwar era, the United States has enjoyed superior leadership in innovation, whether measured by student skills, research and development spending, patents, or high-technology industry output. However, as Western European economies caught up with the global innovation frontier and Japan followed, this superiority began to erode. The U.S.-led IT revolution of the 1990s seemed to slow down this innovation convergence, but only until the bubble burst in the early 2000s. While America has recovered faster from the global financial crisis than other nations, structural trends in innovation convergence have not disappeared. On the contrary, the technological advancement of large emerging economies, such as China, has even more clearly delineated different nations’ impacts in global innovation. In the absence of significant government investment in innovation (from both direct spending and tax incentives for business to invest more in innovation), the current budget sequestration is likely to pave the way for further relative decline in innovation with accompanying slower economic growth. It is not an inevitable scenario, however. The United States could once again lead in the race for global innovation advantage with an appropriate innovation strategy — one that’s credible, bipartisan and medium- to long-term in nature. This report assesses the current state of the American innovation ecosystem, compares it to the systems of our top global competitors and argues that we need a comprehensive national innovation strategy, backed by significant government investment, to restore the United States to global leadership.
A Look Inside Accelerators: Building Businesses
NESTA
This report is one of two commissioned by Nesta to describe the changing landscape of startup support. The past decade has seen a profusion of programs offering to make the entrepreneurial journey less solitary for founders. As with startups themselves, many of these programs are yet unproven; some will undoubtedly fail. However, by providing a clearer definition and analysis of the models in use, it is hoped that these studies will aid startups, policymakers and program developers alike in navigating that landscape, and in finding sustainable models which help startups thrive.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
The TCI Network on European Cluster Policy: Enhancing Delivery, Broadening Impact
The TCI Network
Cluster-based approaches have over the last few decades become an important element in the tool kit of economic development practice, especially in Europe. Members of the TCI network, the leading global network of professionals and organizations in cluster-based economic development, have been key drivers in the process, often in close collaboration with the European Commission. This position paper is a contribution to the discussions about the next stage of cluster policy in Europe. The paper argues that the focus of a new strategy should be on enhancing delivery and broadening impact. It contends that the main priority for effective cluster policy in Europe is better implementation and a more strategic and coordinated use of cluster policies, not a different direction. TCI members have identified five areas as critical to improve the practice of cluster-based economic development in Europe: (1) training, coaching and mentoring of professionals in the field; (2) data, analytical concepts and platforms for knowledge sharing; (3) cluster policy models that are aligned with the realities of specific types of locations and clusters; (4) coordination of cluster efforts between different functional units and across different levels of government; and (5) cluster-based approaches addressing specific issues or policy goals.
The Metropolitan Century: Understanding Urbanization and its Consequences
OECD
The report provides an outline of recent and likely future urbanization trends and discusses the consequences. The world is in the middle of an urbanization process that will cause urbanization rates to rise from low double digit rates to more than 80% by the end of the century. It argues that this is both a great opportunity and a great challenge, as decisions taken today will affect the lifes of people for a long time to come. The report aims at explaining why cities exist, and what can make them prosperous and function well. It also discusses whether cities are good for residents, for the countries they are located in and for the global environment. The report argues that cities exist and grow because they are a source of economic prosperity and offer amenities that benefit their residents. It concludes that urbanization is a process that needs to be shaped by policy makers to ensure that all benefit from it.
UK Devolution Offers Lessons for U.S. Cities
Bruce Katz, The Brookings Institution
For those of us who believe that nations should be looking for smart ways to decentralize power to their cities and metropolitan areas, the United Kingdom is the current center of action. There the devolution movement has gained momentum and only seems to be accelerating. Earlier this week, a devolution summit was held in Glasgow by Core Cities, an advocacy group for urban areas in the U.K., and ResPublica, an independent think tank based in London. City representatives from England, Scotland and Wales gathered to mark the release of two seminal documents—“A Modern Charter for Local Freedom” and “Restoring Britain’s City States: Devolution, Public Service Reform and Local Economic Growth.” In this post Katz comments on the driving themes of these documents and explores their implications U.S. cities and metropolitan regions.
Statistics & Indicators
America’s Skills Challenge: Millennials and the Future
Madeline Goodman, Anita M. Sands, and Richard J. Coley, ETS/OECD
Despite having a higher rate of educational attainment than any previous generation, U.S. millennials (between 16-34 years of age) ranked lower than most of their international peers in literacy, mathematics and technology problem solving . Those born in the U.S. after 1980 tied for last among the 22 participating countries in numeracy and technology skills, and 16th in literacy. Top scoring Americans in this cohort ranked lower than their peers in most other countries, and bottom-scoring Americans ranked among the lowest in the whole study.
Policy Digest
Industrial Strategy and the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”
Eoin O’Sullivan, Policy Network
The old 20th century model whereby technological innovation is driven by a small number of countries is rapidly disappearing. In this context the UK needs a ‘national advanced manufacturing strategy’.
Manufacturing is changing. New technologies are radically altering not only how we make things, but how we innovate. As manufacturing systems, technologies and innovation activities become more complex, distributed and interdependent, a coordinated industrial strategy will be essential for UK to compete in what many are calling a ‘fourth industrial revolution’.
The increasingly complex ‘systems-nature’ of manufacturing poses a significant challenge to policymakers. Modern manufacturing cannot be understood by simply analyzing individual sectors or technologies alone. Many of the most valuable manufactured products are themselves complex systems, made up of multiple technological components, produced by advanced ICT-enabled process technologies, and relying on diverse, interdependent supply networks. Furthermore, these systems are shaped by powerful social and economic drivers (eg changing demographics, climate change, energy security) and rely on the availability and combination of factors that are vital to the rest of the economy (labour, knowledge, natural resources, capital).
Not only are high-value production activities distributed throughout international supply chains, but product and process innovation activities are also increasingly dispersed and interdependent. Without strong connections between the research base and manufacturing, countries risk losing the ability to translate new technologies into production. To compete effectively, national economies require industrial-innovation systems that can respond to emerging high-value opportunities with the right combinations and clusters of skills, technological R&D, finance and infrastructure.
The need for a National Advanced Manufacturing Strategy
A key element of UK industrial strategy is its attention to individual sectors of importance to the economy. The growing interdependencies between manufacturing supply chains, advanced production technologies, and R&D capabilities, however, means that industrial strategies will increasingly have to look beyond traditional sectors boundaries. Real-world manufacturing ‘ecosystems’ do not correspond to the (product-based) ‘sector’ categories of the national accounts. Sustainable high-value manufacturing requires inputs from an extended set of actors: small- and medium-sized enterprises providing high-value components, specialist engineering consultancies, R&D service providers, and advanced equipment manufacturers. It is the ‘health’ and competitiveness of these broader manufacturing ‘ecosystems’ that must be focus of industrial strategy.
Furthermore, the interdependence of manufacturing value chains and experimentation by different sectors with transformative manufacturing technologies (e.g. 3D-printing) increases the likelihood for disruptive new technologies and business innovations to cross between sectors.
An effective overarching UK industrial strategy should, therefore, systematically scan across all manufacturing sectors to better identify and understand cross-cutting manufacturing challenges and opportunities, common innovation infrastructure requirements, emerging skills needs, technological R&D priorities and competing demands for resources. In short, the UK needs a ‘national advanced manufacturing strategy’ – a strategy that informs and is informed by all the individual sector strategies. A strategy that can help prepare the UK to compete effectively in the ‘fourth industrial revolution’.
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.
Events
Broadbent Institute Progress Summit 2015: Building a Better Canada
Ottawa, 26-28 March, 2015
The Broadbent Institute is holding its second annual Progress Summit 2015 in Ottawa from March 26 to 28 — bringing together an exciting group of progressive minds, influential thinkers, policy experts, and organizers to help build a better Canada. A special training day is also being held to teach progressive organizers cutting-edge campaign strategies.
Toronto, 21 April, 2015
Global connectivity is the fundamental challenge of our generation. Gain insight into the future made possible through digital infrastructure. Speakers include: Kristina Verner is the director of intelligent communities for Waterfront Toronto, where she is responsible for a variety of strategic initiatives for one of the world’s pre-eminent intelligent communities. John Helliker is the director of strategic partnerships and the Screen Industries Research and Training Centre at Sheridan College. Glenn Smith, P.Eng., draws on over 20 years of experience in broad business, technology development and commercialization with leadership roles in two University of Waterloo spinoff companies as well as Centres of Excellence in commercialization. Campbell Patterson is the founding partner of CP Communications (CPC). Campbell’s extensive career has seen him as a vice president of J. Walter Thompson Advertising and McDonald’s Restaurants licensee. Anita Simpsonis a superintendent of education for program and innovation with the Simcoe County District School Board. She is also the Canadian Cluster lead for New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL), an international learning lab involving 10 countries and 1,000 schools from around the world.
Delivering Smart Specialization and Economic Transformation Through Clusters
Brussels, Belgium, 27-28 April, 2015
The emphasis on economic transformation and on building interregional value chains calls for a new generation of cluster policy approaches. Clusters can be key delivery instruments for national and regional smart specialisation strategies, internal market, re-industrialisation and SME policy. Using interactive formats, this conference will provide a unique opportunity for regional policy makers and cluster actors to share experiences on how smart specialization strategies and clusters can help transform your region and drive growth. Building upon success stories and innovative practices, participants will learn about novel ways of implementing smart specialisation through cluster-based activities and cross-clustering actions. They will also have the chance to explore new partnerships for joint activities in the context of the new generation of European programmes such as ERDF, COSME and Horizon2020. This is an event jointly organised by DGs GROW and REGIO of the European Commission
The Organization, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research
Torino, Italy, 11-12 May, 2015
LEI & BRICK with financial support from the Collegio Carlo Alberto are organizing their annual workshop on “The Organization, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research”. The aim of the workshop is to bring together a small group of scholars interested in the analysis of the production and diffusion of scientific research from an economics, historical, organizational, and policy perspective. The deadline for paper submission is January 31, 2015.
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.
Tech Leadership Conference: What Worked Yesterday is Obsolete Tomorrow
Kitchener, 28 May, 2015
Tech and society change quickly. The best business ideas can be outdated in months. To stay on top today takes visioneering: the process of building a dream into a workable application. Communitech’s Tech Leadership Conference is the largest annual all-day gathering of tech decision makers in Waterloo Region. It’s about creating market expectations and establishing the region as the best place on the planet for tech companies to start, grow and succeed. On May 28, gain insights from renowned keynotes and take part in sessions led by industry experts.
The Chicago Forum on Global Cities 
Chicago, 27-29 May, 2015
Global cities rise above the rest. They have the scope, ambition, and clout to shape not just the world’s economy but its ideas, its culture, its policies, and its future. They set the standards and make the rules. Big and connected, they transcend national frontiers and disrupt international agendas. They are magnets for business, people, money, and innovation. And yet global pathologies—terrorism, inequality, climate change—hit global cities first and hardest. Powerful and resourceful, global cities are the key actors in driving political, social, and economic policies and solving critical world challenges. This conference will bring together global city leaders of the four pillars vital to urban life—business, education, arts and culture, civics—for a multidisciplinary discussion on how they can collaborate to make their cities more economically vital, socially inclusive, and environmentally livable. The future of global cities will be defined by the mayors and maestros, the scholars and CEOs, who will attend and participate in this unique global forum in a unique global city.
DRUID 15 – The Relevance of Innovation
Rome, Italy, 15-17 June, 2015
Since 1995 DRUID has become one of the world’s premier academic conferences on innovation and the dynamics of structural and geographic change. Presenting distinguished plenary speakers, a range of parallel paper sessions, and a highly attractive social program, the conference aims at mapping theoretical, empirical and methodological advances, and contributing novel insights.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.