News from the IPL
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Dan Breznitz awarded Balsillie Prize for Public Policy
IPL Co-director and University of Toronto University Professor Dan Breznitz has been awarded the Balsille Prize for Public Policy by the Writers’ Trust of Canada for his latest book, Innovation in Real Places: Strategies for Prosperity in an Unforgiving World, published by Oxford University Press.
David Wolfe nominated to the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Council of Canadian Academies
IPL Co-director David Wolfe was recently nominated to serve on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Council of Canadian Academies. The role of the Scientific Advisory Committee is to advise the CCA’s Board on assessment topics, expert panel composition, and peer review.
RECENT EVENTS
National Governments & Innovation Policy: Where – and What – Is Utopia?
This is a recording of a January 10 panel focused on national governments and Innovation policy. Canada, the Nordics, Taiwan? In this webinar, panelists examined the diverse roles played by national governments in setting the stage for innovation, as well as the key elements that ought to be considered in formulation of innovation policy in Canada and elsewhere.
Speakers:
- Susana Borras, Professor, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen Denmark
- Dan Breznitz, University Professor and Munk Chair of Innovation Studies; Co-Director, Innovation Policy Lab, Munk School; Clifford Clark Visiting Economist, Department of Finance, Government of Canada
- Darius Ornston, Associate Professor, Munk School
- Joseph Wong, Vice-President, International, University of Toronto; Roz and Ralph Halbert Professor of Innovation, Munk School; Professor, Department of Political Science
Moderator:
- Rana Foroohar, Global Business Columnist and Associate Editor, Financial Times, and Global Economic Analyst, CNN
RESEARCH
The Role of Experimentation in Driving Transformational Innovation in Real Places
Alex Glennie, Dan Breznitz, Greeta Nathan, Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium
This panel featuring IPL Co-Director Dan Breznitz discussed the critical importance of creating transformative innovation strategies and policies that are evidence-driven, rooted in the capabilities and resources of communities, and that acknowledge and take advantage of where a country, region, or local area is situated along the entire process of innovation. Prevailing approaches to innovation policymaking have been heavily influenced by the Silicon Valley model of growth creation, which prioritizes technological innovation. Some cities or regions have benefited from this approach, but it is neither feasible or desirable in every context, and it is unlikely to lead to a step change in terms of directing innovation activities towards achieving transformative societal goals. A culture of exploration and experimentation is required, to develop and continually adapt innovation policies that are fit for purpose, and fit for context.
Nathan Lemphers, Steven Bernstein, Matthew Hoffmann, & David A. Wolfe, Energy Research & Social Science
In the media, Norway, California, and Québec are widely acknowledged as innovative leaders in transportation electrification. Yet, what does leadership mean and how did these jurisdictions achieve it? We contend that leadership reflects both intentional forethought through early, experimental and innovative policy to promote electric vehicles and the on-the-ground successful outcomes of these policies. All three jurisdictions have embarked on different leadership paths. We argue that these differences are a function of how electromobility policy entrepreneurs engaged unique pre-existing local assets and activated similar political mechanisms of normalization, coalition building and capacity building. When policy actors harness mutually reinforcing political and industrial dynamics, electric vehicle policies can scale up. Eventually, these dynamics may lead to new industrial path development and the decarbonization of the transportation sector.
Into the Scale-up-verse: Exploring the landscape of Canada’s high-performing firms
Innovation Policy Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and The Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship
Scale-ups, or high-growth firms, are responsible for the vast majority of productivity growth in Canada, making them an immensely powerful tool in the pursuit of Canada’s long-term economic stability and prosperity. However, only 1 in 100 young firms reach scale-up status within their first ten years. How can we harness, support, and amplify the power of scale-ups and their contributions to the Canadian economy? A collaboration between the Innovation Policy Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and The Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship, this new study, Into the Scale-up-verse, takes the first step toward better equipping policymakers to support the success of Canadian firms by unpacking the complexity and nuance in Canada’s diverse scale-up universe. The research was initiated and funded by Delvinia in partnership with Mitacs and the IPL, and conducted jointly with BII&E. The report analyzes the most recent and detailed data set concerning Canadian business dynamics to provide a novel and comprehensive guide for those in a position—such as academic researchers, industry players, and government policymakers—to design supportive economic policy and facilitate productive conversations about Canada’s scale-ups.
Editor's Pick
Public Policy Forum
This three-part podcast series from the Public Policy Forum focuses on Canada’s innovation policy. Episode 1 – Innovation Policy: By the Numbers – tries to understand what Canada’s innovation agenda needs to do to level the playing field. In 2018, Canada ranked 12th out of 16 in all OECD nations on the Innovation Scorecard. Episode 2 – Innovation Policy: Missions – looks at how COVID-19 showed us what was possible in Canadian innovation and how we can take the lessons of a ‘mission’ to refocus our innovation policy as a whole. Episode 3 has yet to be announced.
Cities & Regions
Anthony Frigon & David L. Rigby, Regional Studies
Where do businesses source the capabilities that influence their diversification? From the resource-based perspective, capabilities are located within the firm. For many economic geographers, capabilities are place-based and flow between firms in local areas. Others claim the capabilities that count emerge from non-local collaboration. The value added of this paper is a firm–establishment–patent dataset that helps identify the sources of capabilities regulating technological diversification in the establishments of multi-locational firms. Results show that capabilities located within establishments themselves are most important to the process of diversification, followed by firm capabilities and then place-based capabilities.
Statistics
Colin Edwards, SSTI
This post by SSTI summarizes a new US Census Bureau report that recent research adding to the debate about whether smaller or larger businesses play an outsized role in the U.S. economy. Analyzing the Census Bureau’s own extensive Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) dataset (including annual measures of establishment openings and closings, firm startups and shutdowns, and job creation and loss from 1978 to 2019), Bureau economists evaluated firms based on two age categories (young and old) and two size categories (small and large). The report finds that the concentration of both older and larger firms has continued to increase in the U.S. economy over the last several decades, giving these firms an overall greater impact on employment and job growth than younger and smaller firms.
Innovation Policy
Backgrounder – The Canada Digital Adoption Program
Innovation , Science and Economic Development Canada
This post announces the creation of the Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP). The CDAP is designed to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) realize their full potential by adopting digital technologies. Announced in Budget 2021, the $4 billion program is an investment of $1.4 billion in grants and advisory services to SMEs from the Government of Canada and up to $2.6 billion in loans from the Business Development Bank of Canada to help businesses cover the costs of implementing new digital technologies.
OECD Framework for the Classification of AI systems
OECD
As artificial intelligence (AI) integrates all sectors at a rapid pace, different AI systems bring different benefits and risks. In comparing virtual assistants, self-driving vehicles and video recommendations for children, it is easy to see that the benefits and risks of each are very different. Their specificities will require different approaches to policy making and governance. To help policy makers, regulators, legislators and others characterise AI systems deployed in specific contexts, the OECD has developed a user-friendly tool to evaluate AI systems from a policy perspective. It can be applied to the widest range of AI systems across the following dimensions: People & Planet; Economic Context; Data & Input; AI model; and Task & Output. Each of the framework’s dimensions has a subset of properties and attributes to define and assess policy implications and to guide an innovative and trustworthy approach to AI as outlined in the OECD AI Principles.
Congress reveals final 2022 budget midway through year
Jason Rittenberg, SSTI
This post by SSTI summarizes the innovation policy investments in the US Congress’ recently proposed full budget for FY 2022. While the legislation has not passed both chambers as of this writing, the discretionary spending provisions are expected to remain unchanged. Few programs received as much funding as the House proposed in its appropriations bills last summer, but science and innovation initiatives generally received at least some additional funding. Highlights include approval for the National Science Foundation to implement a technology directorate and new Regional Innovation Accelerator program; and, the creation of a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health.
Policy Digest
Innovation and industrial policies for green hydrogen
Emile Cammeraat, Antoine Dechezleprêtre and Guy Lalanne, OECD
This paper examines the current development of hydrogen technology in the manufacturing sector and the industrial policies enacted to support it across countries. Most net–zero emission scenarios agree that hydrogen will play a pivotal role in decarbonisation at the 2050 horizon. However, in 2021, the production of green hydrogen (water and renewable electricity through electrolysis) is still about 3 times more expensive than grey hydrogen (made out of natural gas through steam reforming). Major cost reductions – and the rapid deployment that they would induce – are realistic in the next 10-20 years, but will crucially depend on massive improvements in the cost of electrolysers (through R&D and large-scale demonstration projects) and on the availability of large volumes of cheap renewable electricity. These investments, in turn, depend on ambitious public policies.
In this context, the authors offer the following policy recommendations for governments looking to lay the ground for the deployment of green hydrogen:
1) Ensure greater support for R&D in green hydrogen and demonstration projects
Targeted R&D support instruments are required, as horizontal R&D support cannot stimulate innovation in technologies characterised by significant uncertainty. Large–scale demonstration projects are also needed to reduce costs through economies of scale, economies of scope and learning–by–doing. Financial instruments (including public loans or guarantees and government venture capital) could efficiently de–risk demonstration projects and crowd in private money. Ensuring that knowledge can flow across firms and that newcomers can benefit from publicly funded R&D and demonstration projects is particularly important as the hydrogen sector is singularly concentrated
2) Ensure a sufficient supply of renewable energy where possible, and encourage the creation of an international hydrogen market
Making green hydrogen competitive will require a significant decrease in the cost and a significant increase in the supply of renewable electricity. Countries endowed with low renewable energy resources should therefore consider importing green hydrogen from countries with abundant renewable energy. Agreeing on common international standards would reduce investors’ uncertainty and facilitate the creation of such an international market for hydrogen.
3) Establish clear carbon price trajectories to provide investors with the right incentives
Adequate carbon pricing would make green hydrogen more competitive, contribute to a cost–efficient decarbonisation, and could provide revenue to finance R&D support to green hydrogen. Deployment subsidies might be needed, on top of carbon pricing, to cover the price difference with fossil fuel–
based alternatives in the medium run, but a combination of strong R&D support and clear carbon pricing trajectories could well be sufficient. Carbon Contracts–for– Difference (CCfD), which are experimented in Germany and consists in forward–contracts on the price of abated greenhouse gases, can decrease uncertainty for investors.
4) Reduce uncertainties for investors through regulatory action and standardisation
Strong government signals are required regarding the potential role of green hydrogen, infrastructure investments – often a pre–requisite for the adoption of
hydrogen – and regulatory standards (e.g. on guarantees of origin, hydrogen purity, equipment specifications, blending into the gas grid). Low–carbon hydrogen
certificates similar to the ones currently in place on the renewable energy market could be introduced.
5) Consider blue hydrogen as an interim solution to facilitate the transition to green hydrogen
Blue hydrogen (produced from natural gas with carbon capture) should be considered only as a short–term option. On the one hand, blue hydrogen may help the transition from fossil fuels to green hydrogen by decarbonising the existing production of grey hydrogen, by facilitating the emergence of a growing hydrogen market and by decarbonising early on some industrial sectors, as well as transportation. On the other hand, blue hydrogen suffers from important drawbacks as it is not completely carbon neutral, it may compete with green hydrogen, and carbon storage requires affordable and secure storage options.
Links to recent IPL webinars
From Science to Entrepreneurship
This is a recording of the Nov. 15th, 2021 webinar. There is a plethora of research on university commercialization and technology transfer. However, there is less of a discussion on the skillset and technical capabilities that allow a scientist to become an entrepreneur. In this webinar we will focus on these skills and programs that induce entrepreneurship. Moving from the scientist’s lab, to entrepreneurship courses, to forming a startup, to growing the firm within an incubator or accelerator.
Speakers:
- Fabiano Armellini, Associate Professor Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal
- Shiri M. Breznitz, Director, Master of Global Affairs Program; Associate Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto
- Elicia Maine, W.J. VanDusen Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship; Academic Director, Invention to Innovation (i2I); Special Advisor on Innovation to the VPRI, Simon Fraser University
- Sophie Veilleux, Professor, Department of Management of the Faculty of Business Administration at Université Laval
- Sarah Lubik (moderator), Director of Entrepreneurship; Co-Champion, Technology Entrepreneurship@SFU Lecturer, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University
Canada’s Quantum Internet: Prospects and Perils
This is a recording of the April 20, 2021 webinar that together experts to discuss the political, economic, and scientific implications of quantum communications, for Canada and the world .Speakers: Francesco Bova, Associate Professor, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto; Anne Broadbent, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Ottawa; Jon Lindsay, Assistant Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and Department of Political Science, University of Toronto; Christoph Simon, Professor and Associate Head, Research, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary; & Dan Patterson (moderator), Technology Reporter, CBS News
Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship in Canada
This is a recording of the March 23rd 2021 webinar focused on the importance of IP protection for entrepreneurship, the intellectual property environment in Canada, and existing support for firms. Panelists discussed issues relating to their firm’s ability to secure IP especially as it relates to IP education and the role of government in supporting IP protection. Speakers: Seray Çiçek, Ryan Hubbard, Graeme Moffat, Moderator: Shiri Breznitz
Events
P4IE 2022 International Conference Measuring Metrics that Matter
May 9-11 2022, Ottawa and Online
How to best design innovation indicators for the future? You are invited to contribute to this challenging question during our second international conference on “Policies, Processes and Practices for Performance of Innovation Ecosystems” (P4IE). The hybrid conference will be held online and in-person at Ottawa. You can actively participate by submitting an academic, industry or public policy paper. Topics includes, but are not limited to: New/Real-time innovation indicators; Sustainable, Inclusive, Responsible (SIR) innovation indicators; Measuring the performance of innovation ecosystems; and Science-to-innovation SIR innovation indicators. Submissions of academic extended abstracts due by December 13, 2021 (acceptance notification by February 15). Submissions of policy papers due by January 14, 2022 (acceptance notification by February 14). Submissions of industrial papers due by February 14, 2022 (acceptance notification by March 14).
Global Conference on Economic Geography 2022
June 7-10, Dublin, Ireland
Under the umbrella topic “Territorial Development”, Trinity College Dublin & University College Dublin invites you to participate in the sixth Global Conference on Economic Geography 2022 to be held in Dublin, Ireland. The conference is organized into 13 session themes – see list below which also provides a link to the detailed theme description. All session theme leaders welcome submissions to their respective themes via the submission portal. In addition, there is also a long list of Special Sessions that are associated with these themes – see list further below which again provides a link for a detailed description for each of these. All Special Session organizers welcome submissions again via the submission portal.
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This newsletter is prepared by Travis Southin.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe