The IPL newsletter: Volume 3, Issue 51

Canadians Speak on Innovation and Learning

Industry Canada

Here are the results of the federal government’s engagement process with Canadians on Canada’s innovation and learning challenges in light of the government’s Canada’s Innovation Strategy, released in February 2002. The overall objective was to bring a large number of Canadians into the discussion, solicit their feedback and ideas on the targets and proposed actions, and challenge them to develop their own action plans to enhance innovation and learning performance.

Innovation in the Service Sector: Analysis of data collected under the Community Innovation Survey

D. Tether et al., CRIC

This paper examines innovation in the largest yet least studied economic sector in Europe, the service sector. Analyzing data from the Second Community Innovation Survey, the authors find just under half of the service enterprises were engaged in innovative activities between 1994 and 1996, with the larger enterprises more likely to be engaged in innovative activities. The two most widely cited aims of innovation was improving the quality of the services provided, and extending the service range and opening new markets.  Also, just under half of the innovating service enterprises were engaged in R&D, with a quarter engaged in R&D on a regular basis. Overall however, R&D is less common in services than among manufacturers.

Intellectual Property: Federal Agency Efforts In Transferring And Reporting New Technology

United States General Accounting Office, Report to Congressional Committees

As required by both the Bayh-Dole Act and the Technology Transfer Commercialization Act of 2000, this report provides information on how federal agencies in the United States identified, patented, and licensed inventions created in their own facilities during fiscal years 1997-2001. The report finds that the technology transfer programs through which federal agencies are patenting, and licensing inventions vary considerably in design, approach, and measurable output, the latter of which accounting for the greatest diversity. In total, these agencies reported 3,676 new inventions, 1,585 patents issued, and $74.5 million in licensing revenues during fiscal year 2001. The report includes a range of relevant statistics for the nine agency with the R&D budgets over US $500 million including invention disclosure, patenting, licensing statistics, and royalty income.

Papers from S&T Indicators Conference 2002

Here are several papers relating to benchmarking and indicators that were presented at the 2002 S&T Indicators Conference held in September 2002 in Karlsruhe, Germany.  Notable papers include “Research and higher education: The missing link in the indicators, and the ongoing fuzziness between strength and efficiency” (Rizzuto et al.); “International benchmarking of biotech research centres” (Hinze et al.) “To a new relationship between government and research organisations: indicators as governance instruments” (van Steen); and “Regional-Level Research and Technology Knowledge Indicators and Linkages with Development Outcomes” (Shapira et al.)

CITO InnoTalk – What is the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Program?

Waterloo, 4 December, 2002 (8:30 am – 11 am)

This InnoTalk will explore the Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) Tax Credit Program, a federal government incentive program designed to encourage the development and advancement of Canadian technologies. The program offers tax incentives in the form of refundable and non-refundable tax credits ranging from 20% to 35% on qualified expenditures. Additional credits are available in most provinces including Ontario. These incentives reduce the after tax cost of performing SR&ED in Canada to one of the lowest in the world. The SR&ED program provides nearly $2 billion in credits to over 18,000 claimants each year.

Competitive Cities. Cluster Development, Funding & Smart Growth Strategies 

Toronto, 9-11 December, 2002

This conference features presentations and workshops focused on helping major urban centres and municipalities to manage the transition to the knowledge economy. Topics include: identifying cluster development opportunities; innovative funding options to finance infrastructure; Smart Growth initiatives across Canada; finding key metrics and benchmarks to track economic development at the municipal level; promoting a municipality’s strengths to the business community; and finally, success stories from Western, Central and Atlantic Canada.

International Conference On Advances In Infrastructure For Electronic Business, Education, Science, Medicine, And Mobile Technologies On The Internet

L’Aquila (Italy) 6-12 January, 2003

The conference attracts experts in computer/communications science and engineering, management and business administration, plus all others researching the e-business in interdisciplinary fashions. Topics include: B2B, B2C, E-Business Management. Workflow Technologies, Datamining, E-Banking, Virtual Marketplace, E-Marketing and E-Government. Keynote speakers include Peter Lyman (UC Berkeley) and Erich Neuhold, IPSI/Fraunhofer.

International conference on territorial development: The key role of regions

Paris, 21-23 January, 2003

This international conference will explore the increasingly important role of regions in all European countries as a key player for territorial development. The regional level is essential especially for the promotion of co-operation and innovation at various levels of governance, from local to international. The aim of the conference is to provide public as well as private stakeholders the opportunity to exchange ideas. Themes to be covered include regions and economic development, regions and territorial cohesion, and regions and civil society.

Knowledge And Economic And Social Change: New Challenges To Innovation Studies

Manchester, 7-9 April, 2003

The purpose of this conference is to bring together the innovation studies community to focus on the current developments in the global economy, in technologies, and in political systems that are continuing to pose new challenges to analysis. Topics include: the increasing importance of the role of knowledge in the operation of the global economy; and the qualitative change in the conditions under which knowledge is exploited to create wealth, to improve the quality of life, and to move towards a sustainable ecosystem, economy and society. The conference is organized by Advances in the Economic and Social Analysis of Technology and the Institute of Innovation Research.

The Knowledge-based Economy: New Challenges in Methodology, Theory and Policy

Augsburg, Germany 9-12 April 2003

This 3rd European Meeting of Applied Evolutionary Economics focuses on the most important aspects of knowledge-based economies within the framework of evolutionary economics. Conference themes include: knowledge and learning; dynamics of technological and qualitative change; industrial organisation in a knowledge-based economy; evolution of institutions financial markets in knowledge-based economies; and policy in a knowledge-based economy. Deadline for submission of extended abstracts: October 18, 2002.

Innovation through Collaboration: Clusters, Networks, Alliances

Manchester, 8-11 June, 2003

This conference aims to address the issues associated with collaboration in the context of recent research which suggests that as many as 50-70% of strategic alliances will fail within four years due to a vast array of cultural, political, technological and commercial factors. It will provide a forum for academics, business people and consultants to discuss these issues in depth by presenting the latest academic papers, delivering company presentations on the subject and running interactive workshops. Selected proceedings will be published in a special edition of The Journal of Enterprising Culture.  The conference is organized by the International Society for Professional Innovation Management.

Creating, haring And Transferring Knowledge: The role of Geography, Institutions, Organizations

Copenhagen, 12-14 June, 2002

The conference has four main objectives: to contribute to a more satisfactory understanding of the mechanisms underlying the way in which knowledge is created, shared and transferred; to examine the promoting or inhibiting effect of particular circumstances of organizational context, institutional setting or geographical configuration, such as cities and agglomerations or clusters; to investigate arrangements particularly capable of enhancing, capturing and utilizing end consumer knowledge; and to consider the implications for managerial strategy and public policy. Both senior and junior scholars are invited to participate and contribute with a paper to the conference.

Communities and technologies (C&T 2003) 

Amsterdam or Bonn, 19-21 September, 2003

This international conference is a forum for stimulating and disseminating research into all facets of communities and information technology. Attendees represent multidisciplinary research efforts from applied computer science and social science. The 2003 conference will focus on presentations and discussion of empirical and conceptual research on a wide range of topics including (Virtual) Community formation and development; Virtual communities vs. location-based communities; Digital cities, and Design methods for communityware. The deadline for submission of full research papers is March 14, 2003.