News from the IPL
MEDIA
Dan Breznitz on innovation lessons from around the world
In this episode of the Unlikely Innovators podcast, hosts Mike Commito and Steve Gravel welcomed Dan Breznitz, Co-Director of the Innovation Policy Lab and Munk Chair of Innovation Studies at the University of Toronto for a chat at Cambrian. Dan talked about why Canada should look beyond the Silicon Valley approach, what the Canada Innovation Corporation means for businesses looking to develop new technologies in our country, and some of the lessons from his latest book, Innovation in Real Places.
Dan Breznitz unmuzzled: Canada Innovation Corporation architect explains how we got here
BetaKit
In this podcast, IPL Co-Director Dan Breznitz discusses the recently announced Canada Innovation Corporation—now a $2.6 billion program over four years, with $1.3 billion going to absorb IRAP. The discussion touches on what the CIC is missing, who might make a good CEO, and why the Crown corp. comes with carrots and sticks.
Editor's Pick
Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear & Carbon Management
U.S. Department of Energy
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently released reports on the pathway to commercial liftoff for both the advanced nuclear and carbon management sectors. The DOE Pathways to Commercial Liftoff reports are 'living documents' representing a new department-wide initiative to strengthen engagement between the public and private sectors to accelerate the commercialization and deployment of key clean energy technologies. The reports provide the private sector and other industry partners a valuable, engagement-driven resource on how and when certain technologies—beginning with clean hydrogen, advanced nuclear, and long duration energy storage—can reach full scale deployment. The new initiative "underscores the critical role that DOE plays in enabling widespread commercial adoption of the clean energy technologies that are essential to meeting President Biden’s ambitious goals of achieving 100% clean electricity by 2035 and a net-zero emissions economy by 2050."
Cities & Regions
Post-Brexit regional policy in England: exploring ‘Levelling Up’ in practice
Nick Gray & Kate Broadhurst, Regional Studies
Levelling Up’ has come to dominate debates around regional inequality in England, but has been criticized for lacking clarity and definition. This paper addresses this critique by providing an early assessment of the concept. It summarizes and critically reviews Levelling Up, arguing that the concept offers a mix of marginal and familiar policies, alongside aspirations for industrial policy and research and development. Furthermore, Levelling Up begins to diverge from recent policy in its spatial focus and approach to governance and devolution. As governments in Europe and the United States grapple with similar challenges, the paper has value beyond a UK audience.
System-level agency and its many shades: path development in a multidimensional innovation system
Maximilian Benner, Regional Studies
In the path development literature, how agents shape innovation systems has attracted growing interest. However, the concept of such system-level agency suffers from an unclear distinction from other levels of agency, underdeveloped links to other agency concepts, vagueness about the conceptualization of a multidimensional innovation system and the impact of agency on it, and a limited understanding of the variegated outcomes of agentic processes. This article offers a sympathetic critique, suggests ideas for a nuanced multilevel agency conceptualization, and proposes a research agenda to close the gaps in understanding how system-level agency affects the course and outcomes of path development.
Statistics
OECD
Despite the increasing adoption of income-based tax incentives for R&D and innovation in the OECD area and beyond, evidence on the availability, design, generosity and actual cost of these incentives remains scarce. This report helps fill this gap by documenting government efforts to provide preferential tax treatment of economic outputs of innovation activities. Drawing on the responses of national contact points to the OECD KNOWINTAX surveys carried out in 2020 and 2021, it presents new evidence on the cost (foregone tax revenues) and uptake of income-based-tax incentives by businesses in 2019, and tracks their distribution by firm size and industry and their evolution over the 2000-2019 period.
Innovation Policy
The Transition Accelerator
This webinar was presented in conjunction with the launch of the Centre for Net-Zero Industrial Policy. The net-zero challenge is no longer just about emissions. The U.S.’s Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan have made it clear that international net-zero ambitions are also a question of competitiveness. While Budget 2023 made substantial moves in the right direction, there’s more work to be done for Canada to develop and implement a strategic industrial policy of its own to move the needle on leveraging investment, creating good jobs, and building net-zero supply chains. But what does modern industrial policy look like? And how can we use it to reduce emissions and compete in a low-carbon world? Join us for a webinar with leading international experts where we’ll look to examples from around the globe to find the common principles and lessons learned that make for successful net-zero industrial policy. Moderator: Bentley Allan, Research Director and Associate Professor, Transition Accelerator & Johns Hopkins University Speakers: Tilman Altenburg, Research Programme Head, German Institute for Development and Sustainability; Olga Mikheeva, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University College London (UCL) Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
The global race to subsidise green technologies
Tilman Altenburg, Axel Berger & Clara Brandi, German Institute of Development and Sustainability
This post summarizes the positives and negatives of the global race to subsidise green technologies, led by the United States, China and the EU. For background, also see a larger report by Tilman Altenburg titled Green Industrial Policy. Concept, Policies, Country Experiences.
The debate over 'industrial policy' may be over — or it may be just getting started
Aaron Wherry, CBC
This analysis situates the recent announcement of Canada and Ontario's $13 billion investment in the Volkswagen battery plan in St. Thomas Ontario within the recent resurgence of debate around industrial policy in Canada. Wherry asserts that "Industrial policy isn't back in fashion because it never really fell out of fashion." Furthermore, the analysis cites the fact that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre "largely avoided making an issue of the Volkswagen deal" and his "muted reaction" to Budget 2023's $16 billion in investment tax credits for clean technology as cause to speculate whether "the relative lack of condemnation from the Conservative side reflects a new consensus on government support for industry."
UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
This report brings together insights on how the UK can boost innovation diffusion and adoption (IDA). Better IDA is needed to maximise the impact of innovation on the UK economy. The key findings from the report are: funding, praise, status and incentives are often centred around having and owning an idea, as opposed to its successful application at scale; there are many possible solutions to improve IDA, such as leveraging place-based specialisms to create new clusters; and the UK needs better information and data on what works and how different sectors are affected.
Policy Digest
CHIPS for America Outlines Vision for the National Semiconductor Technology Center
U.S. Department of Commerce
This post summarizes the recent paper by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) outlining its vision and strategy for a National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC). The NSTC is a key component of the research and development program established by President Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act. The paper, A Vision and Strategy for the National Semiconductor Technology Center, lays out how the NSTC will accelerate America’s ability to develop the chips and technologies of the future to safeguard America’s global innovation leadership. The vision and strategy paper describes the center’s mission, core programs, and other features.
The NSTC’s programs are intended for the entire ecosystem: fabless companies, research institutions, community colleges, state and local governments, national labs, foundries, integrated device manufacturers, equipment vendors, materials suppliers, labor unions, and investors. The NSTC aims to fulfill the unmet needs of the sector with member services such as access to emerging materials and process technologies, digital assets and design tools, a chiplet stockpile, and incubation support for startups. It also will offer the opportunity for participation in industry grand challenges, road mapping and standards activities, and workforce training and technical exchange programs.
As outlined in the strategy paper, the NSTC has three high-level goals:
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Extend America’s leadership in semiconductor technology. Designing, prototyping, and piloting the latest semiconductor technology in America will provide the foundation for future applications and industries and strengthen the domestic semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem.
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Reduce the time and cost of moving from design idea to commercialization. The NSTC will leverage shared facilities and expertise for designing, prototyping, manufacturing, packaging, and scaling of semiconductors and related products that provide innovators in the U.S. with critical capabilities to advance economic and national security.
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Build and sustain a semiconductor workforce development ecosystem. The NSTC will serve as a coordinating body and center of excellence to scale the technical workforce, including scientists, engineers, and technicians. The NSTC workforce programs will support expanding recruiting, training, and retraining for the semiconductor ecosystem, including reaching groups that are traditionally under-represented in the industry.
In addition to establishing a center for research, administration, and operations, the NSTC will establish technical centers by expanding and improving research facilities across the country or by building new, advanced facilities. Inventors and entrepreneurs, start-ups and established businesses, chipmakers, materials and equipment suppliers, educators and trainees can all collaborate on NSTC programs. The NSTC is designed to address the real-world technical challenges of the semiconductor industry and provide immediate and hands-on knowledge transfer and training to participants.
Links to recent IPL webinars
Does Canada have an effective innovation policy?
March 16, 2023 |11:00AM - 12:00PM, Online via Zoom
Since 2000 Canada has witnessed a proliferation of Innovation Strategies, including the 2017 Innovation and Skills Plan. Yet our innovation performance continued to deteriorate throughout this period. The 2022 Federal Budget began with the admission, “Our third pillar for growth is a plan to tackle the Achilles’ heel of the Canadian economy: productivity and innovation.” What factors best explain Canada’s dismal innovation performance over the past two decades? Join us for an IPL webinar with two of the most insightful analysts of Canadian innovation policy.
Moderator: David A. Wolfe, Professor of Political Science and Co-Director, Innovation Policy Lab
Panelists:
Shirley Anne Scharf, Ph.D. Shirley Anne Scharf is Visiting Researcher with the CN-Paul M. Tellier Chair on Business and Public Policy, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa and has her Ph.D. in Public Administration, School of Political Studies at U of O. Her dissertation, “Canadian Innovation Policy: The Continuing Challenge” (2022) examines the key dimensions driving the gap between policy intent and impact, and the consequences for Canada’s innovation eco-system.
Travis Southin, Ph.D. Travis Southin is a postdoctoral fellow at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration working with the Transition Accelerator on net-zero industrial policy. He completed his PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto in 2022. His dissertation, titled “Overcoming Barriers to Policy Change: The Politics of Canada’s Innovation Policy,” illuminates the political barriers constraining the Government of Canada’s ability to shift its innovation policy mix away from neutral/horizontal policy instruments towards more targeted innovation policy instruments.
Events
Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy
May 24-26, 2023, Georgia Institute of Technology Global Learning Center, Atlanta
The Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy provides a showcase for the highest quality scholarship from around the world addressing the challenges and characteristics of science and innovation policy and processes.
June 27 to 29, 2023, Toronto
The 6th International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP6) is coming to Toronto! Organized by IPPA, ICPP6 is hosted by the Toronto Metropolitan University's Faculty of Arts and Public Policy graduate studies programs and will take place at the University's premises in downtown Toronto from June 27 to 29, 2023, with a Pre-Conference on June 26. This conference includes a panel chaired by IPL Co-director Dan Breznitz called "Organizational Evolution in Innovation Policy."
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This newsletter is prepared by Travis Southin.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe