News from the IPL
ANNOUNCEMENTS
New York Ventures to Oversee State’s Innovation Investment Funds
SSTI Weekly Digest
New York Ventures, an Empire State Development program dedicated to encouraging innovation and fueling economic growth in communities across New York, was launched this month. The program is derived of three separate funds: the $100 million New York State Innovation Venture Capital Fund; the $45 million Innovative NY Fund; and, the $2 million Minority- and Women-Owned Business Investment Fund. As part of the New York Ventures launch, Empire State Development also announced the NYS Innovation Venture Capital Fund’s close on financing for two New York-based tech companies.
Strengthening Canada’s Talent Advantage in a Global Digital Economy
ICTC
The Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) recently announced a partnership with Microsoft Canada to help develop a national digital talent strategy for Canada. The national digital talent strategy is expected to be released at the end of January 2016. The report will contextualize Canada’s digital landscape and labour market needs by 2020, and propose policies and programs to develop Canada’s digital talent as a comparative advantage in the global economy. This initiative will leverage ICTC’s extensive research, programs, and consultations with leaders from industry, education, and policy makers across Canada.
U.S. Businesses Ratcheted Up Investments in R&D in 2013
SSTI Weekly Digest
Research performed by U.S. businesses grew by 6.7 percent in 2013, reaching $322.5 billion, according to the National Science Foundation’s Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS). The increase was the largest since the survey began in 2008. As businesses recovered from the economic crisis in 2009-2010, U.S. business R&D fell by 4.1 percent, but then began to recover. Most of the increase in 2013 was due to research funded by the companies themselves, with information technology companies posting the largest growth (22.2 percent).
Editor's Pick
Clusters and Regional Economies: Implications for the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Region
Christian Ketels, Harvard Business School
The report analyses the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Region economy, focusing on medium-term patterns of performance and composition. It combines data for the entire territory of the states and provinces in the Region, and is thus moving beyond the more narrow boundaries of the watershed area. It aims to inform the policy discussion in the Region about ways to improve its underlying competitiveness in areas where collaboration across the Region can play a critical role.
Innovation Policy
The Innovation Imperative in the Public Sector: Setting an Agenda for Action
OECD
Governments are seeking to innovate: in how they work; in the services they provide and how they provide them; and in how they interact with citizens, businesses, and civil society. These changes are being driven by different forces, including a more globalized and networked world, rising citizen expectations, new technologies, increasingly complex problems facing governments and – particularly since the 2008 economic crises – tight budgets. Whatever the reason, the consensus seems clear: public sector organizations need new ways of working. This book identifies how organizations can improve their capacity for innovation by empowering the workforce, generating ideas, adopting new methods of work and reducing regulatory complexity.
Strategy, Not Technology, Drives Digital Transformation: Becoming a Digitally Mature Enterprise
Gerald C. Kane et al., MIT Sloan Management Review
Executives who think they’re in a technology arms race are focusing on the wrong area: this report identifies strategy, not technology, as the key driver of success in the digital arena. Conservative companies that avoid risk-taking are unlikely to thrive — and they’ll also lose talent, as employees across all age groups want to work for businesses committed to digital progress.
A Critique of the Congressional Research Service’s “U.S. Manufacturing in International Perspective
Adams Nager and Robert D. Atkinson, ITIF
Over the last 15 years the U.S. manufacturing sector has declined significantly compared to those of competitor nations. In the face of this decline, congressional action is needed more than ever to reduce the effective corporate tax rate; to boost investment incentives, including for R&D; to better enforce trade rules globally; and to support manufacturing innovation and workforce development. Recently, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued “U.S. Manufacturing in International Perspective,” in response to a congressional request to better ascertain the condition of the sector and the need for policies and programs to support American manufacturing. The CRS report denies 1) that American manufacturing is in trouble, and 2) that congressional action is capable of helping it. Thus, CRS endorses an agenda of inaction. However, as ITIF demonstrates in this new report, the CRS report consistently errs on the side of “all is well” when in fact actual U.S. manufacturing performance is declining significantly. Manufacturing employment has decreased at rates that cannot be explained by productivity gains, real value-added output has been stagnant, and the foreign direct investment and R&D statistics cited by the CRS are both inflated and poor indicators of manufacturing success.
Ensuring Leadership in Federally Funded Research and Development in Information Technology
PCAST
A new report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) proposes new categories for IT research investment in the coming years. Federally-funded IT research is currently grouped in eight categories introduced in 1995 for the purposes of budgeting and tracking. PCAST is recommending an overhaul of these categories to reflect the contemporary IT landscape. Other recommendations focus on continued investment in cybersecurity, Big Data, health IT and other hot topics. However, PCAST also advocates stronger federal support for education and workforce training with on-ramps for underserved communities.
Global Trends to 2030: Can the EU Meet Challenges Ahead?
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System
As the world is experiencing change at a speed and with an intensity that often seems unprecedented, the pace and quality of our collective analyses of such change should follow suit. The European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) project aims to help the European Union (EU) identify the main global trends, assess their implications and review the resulting challenges and policy options confronting decision-makers. At the same time, the project also signals a readiness on the part of the European Union to engage with international strategic allies, counterparts and experts, from around the world, in order to try to reflect on, and ideally address together, those common global trends and challenges.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Cities and Unequal Recovery
National League of Cities
The Local Economic Conditions Survey 2015 asks government officials in more than 250 cities across the nation to assess their local economic conditions. Painting a broad picture of the economic health of cities, this report highlights key points from the most recent survey. The report finds that economic conditions over the past year have improved in nearly all cities, with 28 percent of city leaders indicating that conditions have improved greatly and 64 percent reporting slight improvements. In the 2013 Local Economic Conditions Survey, just 8 percent of cities reported greatly improved local economic conditions from the year before.
Statistics & Indicators
Main Science and Technology Indicators 2015 – Issue 1
OECD
This biannual publication provides a set of indicators that reflect the level and structure of the efforts undertaken by OECD member countries and seven non-member economies (Argentina, China, Romania, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Chinese Taipei) in the field of science and technology. These data include final or provisional results as well as forecasts established by government authorities. The indicators cover the resources devoted to research and development, patent families, technology balance of payments and international trade in R&D-intensive industries. Also presented are the underlying economic series used to calculate these indicators. Series are presented for a reference year and for the last six years for which data are available.
Policy Digest
Expanding Growth and Opportunity: Findings from the Brookings-Rockefeller Project on State and Metropolitan Innovation
Pete Carlson, The Brookings Institution
In 2011, Brookings and the Rockefeller Foundation launched the Project on State and Metropolitan Innovation (PSMI), a five-year initiative to expand economic growth and opportunity in metropolitan regions. Over the last four years, the project has worked with 22 metropolitan regions and seven states to create and deploy economic development strategies designed to grow and retain high-quality jobs in innovative, productive industries in ways that expand opportunity for all. Last December, Brookings convened leaders from these sites for a daylong conversation assessing the PSMI work overall, its impact thus far, and lessons for future work. A similar session engaged Brookings staff and leaders in a debriefing of the full portfolio of PSMI projects. This report contains the findings of the project.
Given that the focus of the PSMI is on long-term transformation of systems, its full impact will not begin to emerge for several years, as the theory of change predicts. However, the PSMI has laid important groundwork and shaped ongoing efforts to expand growth and opportunity, and sites are building momentum in this direction.
That momentum bodes well for the long-term adoption of the model, although several issues will present challenges to regional leaders as they work to sustain and expand these efforts. It is another positive outcome of the efforts so far that these issues have been identified and can be anticipated and addressed going forward. Some of the key considerations identified:
- Leaders need to be able to work across programmatic and jurisdictional boundaries to implement the new model, both strategically and organizationally, but such “galvanizing” leaders are in short supply.
- The work is long term and systemic, but funding is short term and programmatic, requiring regional leaders to cobble together programmatic grants on a long-term basis.
- Dedicated staff is essential to the core team guiding the work, but sites are challenged to secure sustained funding for “backbone” organizations or intermediaries.
- Systems change requires a holistic approach, but moving on too many fronts can overwhelm the effort. Focusing on single projects is more feasible but reduces the potential for broader impact and transformation of systems.
- Entrenched interests and systems resist change, and many public resources are constrained by established programs.
- A natural process of entropy arises from inevitable changes in leadership, the economic and political landscape, and priorities in organizations and funders, increasing the challenge of sustaining long-term efforts.
Lessons such as these, learned over the four years of the Project on State and Metropolitan Innovation, have refined and sharpened the strategy, even as the work continues to unfold. These lessons are also laying the groundwork for a next generation of research into the forces and conditions that drive healthy economic growth in metros and how best to leverage them.
Events
11th Regional Policy Conference of the Technopolicy Network – Internationalization of Technology Clusters
Moscow, Russia, 7-9 September, 2015
The 7th of September will be spent well to get to know the surrounding of Zelenograd, and the participants of the conference through a social tour to the Technounity cluster of the city. Zelenograd was built in 1958 as a reflection of the California Silicon Valley and is also known as Soviet/Russian Silicon Valley. It was already one of the most influential centres of electronics, microelectronics and computer industry in the Soviet Union and still plays a similar role in modern Russia. Nowadays the city is the headquarters of its microelectronic solutions department. On the 8th and 9th of September, participants will have two days of activating sessions, with a focus on cluster management and regional development policies. Also, the conference will introduce a keynote speakers who will be leading experts on the subjects of internationalization, technology clusters, and innovation.
Waterloo Innovation Summit
Waterloo, September 16-18, 2015
Join top business, academic and policy decision-makers in one of the world’s leading innovation ecosystems. Hear from influencers, share best practices with enablers and experience first hand what it takes to lift your region into global contention.
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.
Inve$table City: 2015 Canadian Urban Forum – Charting a Course for Canada’s Urban Agenda
Toronto, 8 October, 2015
Join the conference to help build momentum for positive change in Canada’s urban policy framework. The opening plenary features an address by the Hon. Glenn Murray (MPP, Ontario’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change). Four interactive sessions address: Creating Investment-Ready Conditions; Getting to Effective Public Policy; Building Economically Resilient Infrastructure; and Integrating Investment and Public Policy.
4th European Colloquium on Culture, Creativity and Economy
Florence, Italy, 8-10 October, 2015
During the past decades myriad links between culture, creativity and economic practice have become major topics of interdisciplinary study. This colloquium aims to bring together leading edge scholars from across the social sciences to critically examine the intersections between these spheres and symbolic and culturally embedded values in particular, and how they are pervaded by and pervade the global economy. Our aim is to create a space for vibrant critical discussion about how ‘creativity’, cultural meanings, cultural phenomena, cultural workers and organizations are not only valuable to the market but increasingly drivers and framers of the systems of value and taste that economic actors attempt to capture and trade upon. Though culture and creativity have always been central to human civilization there is increasingly a need to understand culture and creativity as central agencies and motifs in the current stage of globalized capitalism, in the digital and knowledge economy, and in the development of human values, communities, regions and cities.
World Future Cities Summit
Toronto, 13-15 October, 2015
The technology driven transformation of cities into Smart and Intelligent Cities is a one trillion dollar business with Smart City conferences and exhibitions springing up all around the world to discuss opportunities. The Greater Toronto Region is a world leader in smart urban transformation but it has no permanent globally recognized conference. On October 13-15, 2015 the Metro Toronto Convention Centre will host the World Future Cities Summit and will inaugurate the annual Greater Toronto conference. The Summit will feature the Mayors’ Summit and ten universities participating in six future city technology conferences all running in parallel. Mayors’ Summit speakers from Europe, the US, the UK, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and India will join Canadian Mayors, civic and government leaders and leaders from industry, academic and research institutions.
DRUID Academy Conference 2016
Bordeaux, France, 13-15 January, 2016
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.
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.