The IPL newsletter: Volume 21, Issue 423

News from the IPL

UPCOMING EVENTS

 

The Future of (Decent?) Work After COVID-19

May 26, 2020 at 12:30PM
What will the future of work look like? How will trends and technologies impact industries and the workforce moving forward? Will automation accelerate our recovery in a post-COVID world? How do we ensure the availability of decent work and maintain an engaged workforce? In this Munk School / Innovation Policy Lab / CIFAR online event, join experts Dan Breznitz, Zabeen Hirji and Peter Warrian for a deep dive into how COVID-19 will affect the next normal of the future of work.

The Future of the University

June 11, 2020 Time TBD
Don Sigel, Elvira Uyarra, Heike Mayer, Shiri Breznitz

“New Beginnings” After COVID for Cities

June 16th, 2020 Time TBD
Anita, Shauna (school of cities), and Nathalie des Rosiers (Massey College), Richard Florida

RECENT EVENTS

The World after Covid-19

This is a recording of the May 11th 2020 event focused on “what will the world look like in the wake of COVID-19?” Speakers: Shauna Brail, Anita McGahan, Tara Vinodrai and Shiri Breznitz.

COVID-19 and the World’s Grand Challenges

This is a recording of the May 8th 2020 event focused on “what impact will COVID-19 have on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?” Speakers: Anita McGahan, Joseph Wong and Karlee Silver.

How is COVID-19 affecting global supply chains?

This is a recording of the April 29th 2020 event focused on “how is COVID-19 affecting supply chains in Canada and around the globe?” Speakers: Dan Breznitz, Shauna Brail and Steven Denney.

RESEARCH

Automotive Regions in Transition: Preparing For Connected and Automated Vehicles

Michaela Trippl, Simon Baumgartinger-Seiringer, Elena Goracinova, David A. Wolfe, PEGISPapers in Economic Geography and Innovation Studies
This article is co-authored by IPL Co-Director David A. Wolfe and Elena Goracinova, an IPL-affiliated PhD Candidate in the University of Toronto’s Department of Political Science. The advent of ‘connected and automated vehicles’(C/AV) is posing substantial transformation challenges on traditional automotive regions across the world. This paper seeks to examine both conceptually and empirically how automotive regions reconfigure their industrial and support structures to promote new path development in the C/AV field. Drawing on recent conceptual advances at the intersection of evolutionary economic geography and innovation system studies, we develop an analytical framework that casts light on how regional preconditions provide platforms for asset modification that underpin different routes of transformation. We distinguish between a reorientation route and an upgrading route.The framework is applied to a comparative analysis of industrial path development and system reconfiguration towards C/AV in two automotive regions, namely Ontario (Canada)and the Austrian automotive triangle.

INTERVIEW

Dan Breznitz is a Professor and Munk Chair of Innovation Studies, in the Munk School of Global Affairs with a cross-appointment in the Department of Political Science of the University of Toronto. He is also the Co-Director of the Innovation Policy Lab. In addition, he is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research where he co-founded and co-directs the program on Innovation, Equity and the Future of Prosperity. Interview and transcription performed by Zissis Hadjis.

In a sentence or two, describe your area of research. Why is it important and interesting to you? Why did you decide to pursue it?
The core reason why innovation is of interest to me, is because I see it as a way to think about change as a result of agency, that is human purposive action. A large portion of my research looks at innovation and growth and why certain countries and communities are better at innovation, and what kind of policies you can institute to become more efficient at innovation. I also look at the distributional impacts of innovation, and investigate the diverse equity of outcomes and opportunities created by innovation in different settings.

Are there any updates from your work or current projects that you can share?
I just finished a book with Oxford University Press titled “Innovation in Real Places: Strategy for Prosperity in an Unforgiving World,” and am currently working on the revisions. This book is not only intended for researchers, but also for policymakers at the regional level. Secondly, along with my colleagues Susan Helper and Amos Zehavi at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), we have created a new research program that looks specifically into innovation, equity, and the future of prosperity. Thirdly, in response to the COVID-19 crisis I have been working quite a lot with policy makers (mainly in the United States) on rethinking about the re-structuring of global production and supply networks.

What impact do you hope your research can have?
I’m trying to change the debate of research, and what is considered “good” and “bad” research. In terms of policy, I want my research to help change policies for the better in terms of economic efficiency, but also in terms of distribution. Most importantly, I want my research to produce hope. In other words, I want my research to show that there is some way or choice to make our current situation better, and that you can be very strategic about what that choice is.

What are the biggest opportunities and challenges facing your area of research?
You need to have very different skills in terms of the research what you do, and how you write it. So not only you have to figure out different methods and research designs for different facets of your research, but publishing in academic journals, affecting policy, and educating the public all require very different writing styles.

What do you think the innovation landscape will look like in 5 or 10 years?
I think the work being done at CIFAR will become really important and will have a massive influence, partly due to the fact that the group is truly global and attracts the best talent, no matter from what country, but also because it allows us to think really broadly about important issues. Also, I think we need to start thinking of more ways to change the low innovation equilibrium in Canada. This has now become much more urgent after COVID-19.

What was the best book (or article) you’ve read recently? Why?
I’ll suggest two, actually. The first is “Ancillary Justice” by Anne Leckie, which is a science fiction novel with a very interesting and compelling premise regarding identity, gender and artificial intelligence. The second book is “Three Parts Dead” by Max Gladstone, which is also a sci-fi novel and the first of “The Craft Sequence” series which deals with themes such as the environment and nature vs nurture.

What advice would you give a new graduate student studying innovation?
The first question they should ask themselves is why they care about innovation. Based on that answer, it will be easier to figure out if they want to study at a business school, the IPL, etc., and discover what impact they hope to have.

Editor's Pick

Young Firms and Regional Economic Growth

Jonas Crews, Ross DeVol, Richard Florida and Dave Shideler
Young Firms and Regional Economic Growth demonstrates how knowledge-intensive and Main Street entrepreneurs are critical to long-term economic success. Metropolitans and micropolitans that started with stronger entrepreneurial ecosystems, as measured by the share of total employment at firms age five years or fewer (young firm employment share) and by the share of employment at those young firms with a bachelor’s degree or higher (young firm knowledge intensity), saw notably faster employment growth between 2010 and 2017 in the United States.

Cities, Clusters & Regions

U.S. Cluster Mapping Portal Sees Data Refresh

SSTI
The U.S. Cluster Mapping Portal has received a data refresh with updated cluster profiles and performance benchmarks for all U.S. regions. This free tool is useful for understanding regional composition of traded sectors and strengths, which could be especially beneficial in these challenging times as businesses attempt to restore their supply chains. The U.S. Cluster Mapping Project is a national economic initiative created by the Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness that provides more than 50 million open data records on industry clusters and regional business environments in the U.S., enabling promotion of economic growth and national competitiveness.

Diversifying in Green Technologies in European Regions: Does Political Support Matter?

Artur Santoalha & Ron Boschma, Regional Studies

New green activities in regions tend to build on regional capabilities. This paper makes a first attempt to test the impact of political support for environmental policy at the national and regional scales, besides regional capabilities, on the ability of 95 regions in seven European countries to diversify into new green technologies during the period 2000–12. Evidence is found that related capabilities rather than political support in a region are associated with green diversification of regions. However, while political support at the national scale tends to moderate the role of regional capabilities, political support at the regional scale strengthens it.

Innovation Policy

Tax Credits and Small Firm R&D Spending

Ajay Agrawal, Carlos Rosell, Timothy Simcoe
In 2004, Canada changed the eligibility rules for its Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SRED) tax credit, which provides tax incentives for R&D conducted by small private firms. Difference-in-difference estimates show a 17 percent increase in total R&D among eligible firms. The impact was larger for firms that took the tax credits as refunds because they had no current tax liability. Contract R&D expenditures were more elastic than the R&D wage bill. The response was also greater for firms that invested in R&D capital before the policy change,

Putting Innovation to Work for British Columbia: Growing B.C. Companies

This report to B.C.’s Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness from B.C.’s Innovation Commissioner Alan E. Winter is a culmination of the latter’s two years appointment as the province’s Innovation Commissioner. The report builds on the 2018 Observations on Innovation in British Columbia report, which served as a “snapshot of the investments being made on the provincial, national and international stage, both from the private and public sector” and “outlined in detail why a focus on innovation, specifically research and development(R&D), is important for economic growth.” This report offers five short-to-medium term recommendations based on the observations and feedback gathered by B.C.’s Innovation Commissioner over the past two years.

Statistics and Indicators

What Are the Labor and Product Market Effects of Automation? New Evidence from France

Philippe Aghion, C ́eline Antonin, Simon Bunel, Xavier Jaravel
This paper uses comprehensive micro data in the French manufacturing sector between 1994 and 2015 to document the effects of automation technologies on employment, wages, prices and profits. Causal effects are estimated with event studies and a shift-share IV design leveraging pre-determined supply linkages and productivity shocks across foreign suppliers of industrial equipment. At all levels of analysis — plant, firm, and industry — the estimated impact of automation on employment is positive, even for unskilled industrial workers, which suggests that the productivity effects of automation outweigh its potential displacement effects. Automation leads to higher profits, lower consumer prices, and higher sales. The industry-level employment response to automation is positive and significant only in industries that face international competition. The results indicate that automation can increase labor demand and can generate productivity gains that are broadly shared across workers, consumers and firm owners.

Identifying and Measuring Developments in Artificial Intelligence: Making the Impossible Possible

OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers
This paper identifies and measures developments in science, algorithms and technologies related to artificial intelligence (AI). Using information from scientific publications, open source software (OSS) and patents, it finds a marked increase in AI-related developments over recent years. Since 2015, AI-related publications have increased by 23% per year; from 2014 to 2018, AI-related OSS contributions grew at a rate three times greater than other OSS contributions; and AI-related inventions comprised, on average, more than 2.3% of IP5 patent families in 2017. China’s growing role in the AI space also emerges. The analysis relies on a three-pronged approach based on established bibliometric and patent-based methods, and machine learning (ML) implemented on purposely collected OSS data.

Policy Digest

Solving the Surveyor’s Dilemma: Estimating Future Returns From Innovation Program Investments

Robin Gaster, ITIF

Dr. Gaster is president of Incumetrics Inc. and a visiting scholar at George Washington University. Between 2004 and 2017, Dr. Gaster was lead researcher on the National Academies multi-volume study of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards. The following is a summary of Gastor et al.’s article “Estimating outcomes and impacts from innovation programs: the case of Navy and Air Force SBIR/STTR programs.”

Measuring ROI With Surveys Creates a “Snapshot” Problem

While it is well-established that innovation-support programs like SBIR/STTR offer return on the government’s investment in the form of new commercial revenues, conventional evaluations are imprecise. Existing program evaluation methods using surveys are flawed in that “essentially snapshots” in that “they capture outcomes at the time of the survey. What they do not capture is outcomes that occur after the survey ends.” As a result, the author notes that “innovation outcome surveys substantially under-report total commercialization. This is due to the fact that “time to market is often long, and the lag even after that can be substantial before a product cycle peaks.”

New Data

The author analyses a set of survey data collected by TechNet for DOD in 2017–2018. The surveys used substantially enhanced resources from DOD and its agencies to build a data set that encompassed almost all Phase II SBIR/STTR projects funded by the U.S. Navy and Air Force between 2000 and 2013. TechNet acquired about 6,700 survey responses against a universe of 7,216 funded projects—a response rate of 93 percent. This large sample made it possible to develop a picture of the revenue life cycle for projects.

Findings

The authors noted that “developing a preliminary estimate for median project outcomes over the product life cycle is an important step forward, because it allows us to develop estimates for the future revenues to be generated by products that had not completed their life cycles at the date the survey was administered.” The missing revenues stem from the fact that “there are projects that have not exhausted their life cycle at the time of the survey” and that “there are projects that have not reached the market at all, but that will do so at some point after the date of the survey.”

The new data suggest that the positive impact of the SBIR/STTR programs is significantly greater than has been reported—and that the return on investment was in fact 22:1 compared with the previous estimate of 15:1. Return on investment (ROI) was defined as the ration of funding provided to eventual commercial returns to companies. The estimated employment effect was 50 percent greater as well. This result was generated using using IMPLAN economic modeling software.

Events

DRUID20 Silver Anniversary Conference
Copenhagen, Denmark, 15-17 June, 2020

THIS CONFERENCE HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT COVID-19 AND RECENT TRAVEL ADVISORIES.

DRUID celebrates 25 years as one of the world’s premier academic conferences on innovation and the dynamics of structural, institutional and geographic change. DRUID is proud to invite senior and junior scholars to participate and contribute with a paper to the DRUID20 SILVER ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE, hosted by Copenhagen Business School. Presenting distinguished plenary speakers, a range of parallel paper sessions, and an attractive social program that celebrates DRUID’s 25 years, the conference aims at mapping theoretical, empirical and methodological advances, contributing novel insights, and help identifying scholarly positions, divisions, and common grounds in current scientific controversies within the field.

Regional Innovation Policies Conference

Aalborg, Denmark, 25-26 March 2021
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak the conference has been postponed to March 25 and 26, 2021 in Aalborg, Denmark. The conference will focus on regions in transformation – as well as transformations in regional innovation policy and new developments in methods for defining and analyzing regions. Submission deadline: 30th November 2020.

Canadian Science Policy Conference

Ottawa, Canada, 23-25 November, 2020
The CSPC 2020 call for panel proposals is now open. The 12th Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC 2020), will be held in Gatineau Quebec on November 23-25, 2020 at Hilton Lac-Leamy. Presenters are invited to submit proposals in a variety of presentation formats that revolve around any of the conference themes. Due to the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals and organizations across Canada and the world, and to accommodate the community, CSPC is extending the panel proposal deadline by an additional four weeks, to May 15th, 2020.

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This newsletter is prepared by Travis Southin.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe