News from the IPL
LINKS TO RECENT WEBINARS
This is a recording of the Jul 16th, 2020 event focused on exploring the short and long term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Panelists included Catherine Beaudry, Ben Spigel, Tara Vinodrai, and David Wolfe.
Will COVID-19 Bring Us Together or Blow Us Apart? The Global Security Implications of the Pandemic
This is a recording of the July 7th, 2020 event focused on the national and international security implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. Janice Stein discusses the historical security lessons of previous pandemics and depressions, Jon Lindsay considers emerging military and strategic dangers exacerbated by COVID-19, and Ron Deibert discusses the cybersecurity and surveillance threats associated with the unprecedented relocation of life online.
This is a recording of the June 11, 2020 event focused on how will COVID-19 shape the future of our cities. Join experts Anita McGahan, Shauna Brail (School of Cities), and Nathalie des Rosiers (Massey College), Richard Florida (School of Cities Professor) as they discuss cities after COVID with Marcia Young, host of CBC’s World Report.
This is a recording of the June 11, 2020 event focused on the impact of COVID-19 on higher education. Speakers: Shiri Breznitz, Heike Mayer, Donald Siegel and Elvira Uyarra.
The Future of (Decent?) Work After COVID-19
This is a recording of the May 26, 2020 Munk School / Innovation Policy Lab / CIFAR event focused on the future of work after COVID-19. Speakers: Dan Breznitz, Zabeen Hirji and Peter Warrian.
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.
RESEARCHERS
A Systematic Review of Big Data Analytics for Oil and Gas Industry 4.0
Trung Nguyen, Ray Gosine & Peter Warrian, IEEE Access
Big data (BD) analytics is one of the critical chapters in the digitalization of the oil and gas (O&G) industry. Its focus is managing and processing an extreme volume of data to improve operational efficiency, enhance decision making and mitigate risks in the workplace. Familiarity with processing seismic data also provides the industry with a better understanding of BD applications. However, the industry still exercises extreme caution in adopting new technologies. The slow pace of technology adoption can be attributed to various causes, from the obstacles to the integration with existing systems to cybersecurity for defending the BD system against cyber attacks. In some applications using wearable devices, physiological and location-tracking data also cause many critical concerns related to workplace privacy implication. These shortcomings give rise to many worries and uncertainties about the practical benefits and effectiveness of applying BD in O&G activities. The objective of this paper is to perform a systematic review of BD analytics within the context of the O&G industry. This paper attempts to evaluate technical and nontechnical factors affecting the adoption of BD technologies. The study includes BD development platforms, network architecture, data privacy implication, cybersecurity, opportunities and challenges of adopting BD technologies in the O&G industry.
Announcements
Ford Deal to Build Electric Cars in Oakville Comes Amid $500M Government Cash to Upgrade Plant
CBC News
The federal government and Ontario have pledged to spend up to $500 million to make the Ford plant in Oakville, Ont., able to build electric vehicles. The future of the plant has been a key question for Canada’s automotive industry ever since the Unifor union started negotiating with the automaker for a new three-year pact to cover the company’s Canadian workforce. The two sides struck a deal a few hours after a midnight strike deadline on Tuesday morning, one that will see the company commit $1.98 billion to build five new electric vehicles and an engine contract that could yield new jobs in Windsor, Ont.
Editor's Pick
Economics of Artificial Intelligence
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
This page provides the agenda and links to all working papers presented at the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Economics of Artificial Intelligence virtual conference hosted in Toronto by Ajay K. Agrawal, Joshua S. Gans, Avi Goldfarb, and Catherine Tucker on September 24-25, 2020.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Richard Florida, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Michael Storper, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography
This paper examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic, fiscal, social and political fallout on cities and metropolitan regions. The authors assess the effect of the pandemic on urban economic geography at the intra- and inter-regional geographic scales in the context of four main forces: the social scarring instilled by the pandemic; the lockdown as a forced experiment; the need to secure the urban built environment against future risks; and changes in the urban form and system. At the macro-geographic scale, they argue the pandemic is unlikely to significantly alter the winner-take-all economic geography and spatial inequality of the global city system. At the micro-geographic scale, however, we suggest that it may bring about a series of short-term and some longer-running social changes in the structure and morphology of cities, suburbs, and metropolitan regions. The durability and extent of these changes will depend on the timeline and length of the pandemic.
Evolution and Trends of Creative Cluster Research
Martha Bloom, Roberto Camerani, Patrizia Casadei, Monica Masucci, Josh Siepel, Jorge Velez-Ospina, NESTA
The geographical clustering of creative and cultural industries is a topic that has gone from being relatively obscure to mainstream in the academic literature over the past twenty years. Despite the abundance of literature, there have been few systematic attempts to survey the breadth and depth of the papers that have been published on this topic. This literature review is written by researchers at the University of Sussex, who lead a research project on creative clusters and innovation. The authors attempt to fill that gap by conducting a systematic literature review of 355 papers on the topic of creative clusters and identify historical trends in geography, sector and journal, drawing upon bibliometric analysis. They conclude that while the creative cluster literature has to date been very impactful, there are substantial gaps for policy-engaged, robust and comparative analysis that need to be addressed in order to drive the topic forward.
Statistics
Useful Stats: Agency SBIR/STTR awards by state, 2009-2019
Colin Edwards, SSTI
This SSTI analysis reveals that for the 10-year period from 2009 to 2018, two federal agencies were the top contributors to SBIR/STTR spending in every state and the District of Columbia. The Department of Defense (DoD) accounted for the greatest SBIR/STTR spending in 29 states while the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was the greatest funder in 22 states. This trend remains the same when including 2019 award data, although it is important to note that as of the writing of this article, DoD’s complete 2019 SBIR/STTR data was not available.
Data-intensive Innovation and the State: Evidence from AI Firms in China
Martin Beraja, David Y. Yang & Noam Yuchtman, NBER
This working paper was presented at the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Economics of Artificial Intelligence virtual conference hosted in Toronto by Ajay K. Agrawal, Joshua S. Gans, Avi Goldfarb, and Catherine Tucker on September 24-25, 2020. Abstract: Data-intensive technologies, like AI, are increasingly widespread. We argue that the direction of innovation and growth in data-intensive economies maybe crucially shaped by the state because:(i)the state is a key collector of data and(ii)data is sharable across uses within firms, potentially generating economies of scope. We study a prototypical setting: facial recognition AI in China. Collecting comprehensive data on firms and government procurement contracts, we find evidence of economies of scope arising from government data: firms awarded contracts providing access to more government data produce both more government and commercial software. We then build a directed technical change model to study the implications of government data access for the direction of innovation, growth, and welfare. We conclude with three applications showing how data-intensive innovation may be shaped by the state: both directly, by setting industrial policy; and indirectly, by choosing surveillance levels and privacy regulations.
Innovation Policy
A Decision-maker’s Guide to the Robotized Pandemic Response
University of Toronto Robotics Institute
From disinfection and remote triage, to logistics and delivery, countries around the world are making use of robots to address the unique challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. But the story of robots and COVID-19 is not just about which countries are using robots to help manage their pandemic response; it is also about how the pandemic has become an inflection point for accelerating investment in robotics more broadly. Written in plain language and free of technical jargon, this paper aims to provide decision-makers with a primer on the use of robots and their potential in the fight against COVID.
World War II R&D Spending Catalyzed Post-War Innovation Hubs
Lauri Scherer, NBER
This post summarizes a recent paper by Daniel P. Gross and Bhaven N. Sampat called ‘Inventing the Endless Frontier: The Effects of the World War II Research Effort on Post-War Innovation’ (NBER Working Paper 27375). Federal support for research led to a surge in wartime patenting and also propelled innovation hubs that fostered post-war discoveries and related employment growth. The case illustrates how a large, mission-driven government research and development (R&D) program can have far-reaching effects on the growth of technology clusters and the direction of technological progress. The researchers analyze the US government’s unprecedented effort in World War II to mobilize science for war through the newly created Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). The OSRD entered into over 2,200 R&D contracts with industrial and academic contractors, spending roughly $7.4 billion in current dollars. The researchers show that these investments had large effects on the direction and location of US invention and on high-tech industrial employment, setting in motion forces of agglomeration that shaped the technology clusters of the postwar era.
Power Play: Canada’s Role in the Electric Vehicle Transition
Ben Sharpe and Nic Lutsey (International Council on Clean Transportation) & Cedric Smith and Carolyn Kim (Pembina Institute)
This paper evaluates Canada’s position in the emerging global electric vehicle industry by analyzing sales and production trends for conventional and electric vehicles and comparing these trends to similar auto markets around the world. By examining Canada’s electric vehicle market and assembly developments, and comparing those with activities in other manufacturing countries, the authors identify underlying policies that Canada could use to ensure they remain an integral part of the rapidly evolving global automobile industry.
Policy Digest
Bridge to the Future: Final Report from the Task Force For a Resilient Recovery
Task Force For a Resilient Recovery
This report represents the culmination of the Task Force for a Resilient Recovery, an independent group of Canadian finance, policy and sustainability leaders dedicated to designing a resilient recovery from COVID-19. Beginning their work in May 2020, the Task Force “drew on leading international efforts while also assessing dozens of Canadian recovery proposals for economic, equity and climate benefits.”
The Task Force recommends 5 overarching ‘bold moves’, supported by 22 recommendations, to “make that recovery resilient by supporting the jobs, infrastructure and growth that will keep Canada competitive in the clean economy of the 21st century.” The authors call for $55.4 billion in government investment over the next five years to implement these initiatives.
5 Bold Moves for a Resilient Recovery (Gov’t investment over 5 years, $B)
#1 Invest in climate-resilient and energy-efficient buildings ($27.25B)
1.1 Expand public-private financing facilities for building retrofits ($13B)
1.2 Expand existing provincial and municipal building retrofit programs, enhancing energy efficiency and climate resiliency ($10B)
1.3 Train a diverse green building workforce ($1.25B)
1.4 Demonstrate large-scale standardized retrofits ($2B)
1.5 Work with provinces to ensure that new buildings meet stringent net-zero and resilience codes, and that a newly developed ‘ResiliGuide’ rating system can enable the financial sec-tor to incent building resilience
1.6 Create an Indigenous Infrastructure Fund ($1B)
#2 Jumpstart Canada’s production and adoption of zero-emission vehicles ($7B)
2.1 Support the development of the Canadian ZEV industrial ecosystem ($2.5B)
2.2 Introduce a phased in ZEV mandate for all vehicle classes
2.3 Kickstart the adoption of ZEVs across Canada ($2.5B)
2.4 Accelerate the installation of EV charging infrastructure across Canada ($2B)
#3 Go big on growing Canada’s clean energy sectors ($11.5B)
3.1 Accelerate investments in clean, robust power grids ($5B)
3.2 Support Canada’s next-generation energy solutions ($5B)
3.3 Catalyze and support national Indigenous clean energy action platforms ($0.5B)
3.4 Support Canadian leadership in an emerging low-carbon hydrogen economy ($1B)
#4 Invest in the nature that protects and sustains us ($4.65B)
4.1 Invest in natural infrastructure ($2B)
4.2 Accelerate global leadership in conservation and support Indigenous reconciliation ($1B)
4.3 Grow financing for nature-based services ($1.25B)
4.4 Grow and train the workforce for ecosystem restoration, monitoring and management, and nature tourism ($0.4B)
#5 Grow clean competitiveness and jobs across the Canadian economy ($5B)
5.1 Develop clean competitiveness roadmaps, capital strategies and action plans for key sectors
5.2 Invest in advanced skills and infrastructure
5.3 Accelerate the production and adoption of clean technologies across the economy ($5B)
5.4 Increase the fairness of climate action
TOTAL INVESTMENT OVER FIVE YEARS: $55.4 Billion
Events
The European Week of Regions and Cities
5-22 October, 2020
The European Week of Regions and Cities is an annual four-day event during which cities and regions showcase their capacity to create growth and jobs, implement European Union cohesion policy, and prove the importance of the local and regional level for good European governance. Sessions are free and open to attend but require delegates to register.
Prospering in the Post COVID Economy: Building a Cooperative Model for Success
Re$earch Money Virtual Conference, 19-21 October, 2020
The COVID pandemic has brought into focus how critical a resilient innovation ecosystem is for our survival, self-sufficiency and sustainability. Join us at the 19th annual R$ Conference: Prospering in the Post- Covid Economy: Building a Cooperative Model for Success and take advantage of networking opportunities through our app with features such as virtual booths, session forums and in-app messaging. Find out more and register here: https://www.researchmoneyevents.com/conference
Canadian Science Policy Virtual Conference
16-20 November, 2020
The program of the 12th Canadian Science Policy Conference is now available. CSPC features exciting panel sessions and programs, with panels from Australia and Asia to countries in Africa, South and Central America, Europe and the U.S., and of course, from coast to coast to coast of Canada. The conference theme is CSPC 2020: New Decade, New Realities: Hindsight, Insight, Foresight, where CSPC decodes the new dimensions of our world and how science and innovation play a role in shaping it.
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.
Subscriptions and Comments
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This newsletter is prepared by Travis Southin.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe