News from the IPL
INTRODUCTION
This newsletter is published by The Innovation Policy Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, and sponsored by the Ministry of Research and Innovation. The views and ideas expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Ontario Government.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Alastair Glass to Become Deputy Minister of Research and Innovation
Dr. Glass is currently the Chairman of the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, Ireland, and until this month was the acting CEO. His recent appointment is effective as of February 13th, 2006. Over the last four years, he has played a pivotal role in growing research and development programs in Ireland as the first Director of Information and Communication Sciences at Science Foundation Ireland, and in helping build effective partnerships between industry, government and academia. Dr. Glass has an impressive background in senior leadership positions at Bell Laboratories, and he has been a frequent advisor to U.S. government agencies and academic institutions, an invited speaker at international conferences and a published author and leader in technical societies.
BMO Financial Predicts High Growth Future for the Waterloo Region’s Diverse Economy
The BMO Financial Group estimated 2005 growth to be at 5.1 per cent, outpacing the provincial and national growth rate. According to the report, real gross domestic product (GDP) in the area grew an estimated 5.1 per cent in 2005. Real GDP for Ontario and Canada grew at only 2.9 per cent for the same period. The analysis of Canada’s Technology Triangle and Guelph is based on data collected to January 6, 2006 and points to the sectors of strength: high technology, financial services, advanced manufacturing and automotive. Looking ahead, the study points to the strength of the real estate market and expects that Waterloo Region and Guelph will benefit from good growth prospects for the North American economy over the medium term.
Editor's Pick
Collaborative Regional Initiatives: Civic Entrepreneurs Work to Fill the Governance Gap
Judith Innes and Jane Rongerude, Institute of Urban and Regional Development
University of California, Berkeley
This edition of Insight provides a retrospective analysis of grants from The James Irvine Foundation to Collaborative Regional Initiatives (CRIs) throughout California. It is the result of more than three years of research and analysis by a team of faculty and graduate students from the Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) at the University of California, Berkeley. CRIs are regional partnerships that bring together Californians from government, business, and community to promote the economic vitality and improve the quality of life in their respective regions. This report outlines how CRIs can be important vehicles for engaging people with diverse interests toward a common goal of addressing economic, environmental, or social issues at a regional level. This report also finds that certain characteristics of CRIs affect their levels of success.
Innovation Policy
This report presents a strategy to create an Innovative Europe. Achieving this requires a combination of a market for innovative goods and services, focussed resources, new financial structures and mobility of people, money and organisations. Together these constitute a paradigm shift going well beyond the narrow domain of R&D and innovation policy. The central recommendation of this report is that a Pact for Research and Innovation is needed to drive the agenda for an Innovative Europe. This requires a huge act of will and commitment from political, business and social leaders. Current efforts towards the revised Lisbon Agenda should be continued.
Finding the Balance in Innovation and Commercialization
Alan Cornford, ACOA
This paper discusses the importance to Canada’s innovative capacity and, in turn, international competitiveness, of establishing the optimal balance of investments among public research and development (R&D), private R&D, highly qualified personnel and risk capital. The paper observes that these key drivers of innovative capacity interact with each other, making the balance among them at least as important as the investment levels in each.
Cities, Clusters & Regions
Communitech
In the summer of 2005, Communitech, working with PWC, commissioned this study to quantify the growth and potential fo the local technology start-up and investment scene in the Waterloo region. It provides an overview of the investment climate in the region, quantifying the past performance of local tech firms and the size of the venture market. It also includes a summary of the business and educational infrastructures that is the foundation for continued innovation.
Statistics & Indicators
Mark Lorenzen, DRUID
This conceptual paper analyses why social capital is important for learning and economic development, why it has a regional dimension, and
how it is created. It argues that with the rise of the knowledge economy, social capital is becoming valuable because it organizes markets, lowering business firms’ costs of coordinating and allowing them to flexibly connect and reconnect. Thus, it serves as a social framework for localized learning in both breadth and depth. The paper suggests that a range of social phenomena such as altruism, trust, participation, and inclusion, are created when a matrix of various social relations is combined with particular normative and cognitive social institutions that facilitate cooperation and reciprocity. Such a matrix of social relations, plus facilitating institutions, is what the paper defines as “social capital”. The paper further suggests that social capital is formed at the regional (rather than national or international) level, because it is at this level we find the densest matrices of social relations. The paper also offers a discussion of how regional policies may be suited for promoting social capital.
Explorative and Exploitative Learning Strategies in Technology-Based Alliance Networks
Wim Vanhaverbeke, Bonnie Beerkens, Geert Duysters and Victor Gilsing, ECIS
Although there is some convergence in the literature regarding the reasons why and how networks of technology alliances are formed, there is still lack of agreement on what constitutes an optimal network structure, once it has been formed. The aim of this paper is to fill this void and to determine what constitutes an optimal network structure for exploration and exploitation. To study this, the paper differentiates among a firm’s direct ties, indirect ties and the redundancy among them. Analyzing their role in the pharmaceutical, chemical and automotive industry it shows that the exploration-exploitation distinction forms an important factor for understanding a firm’s optimal network structure, and that the differences in network optimality between both tasks is one of degree. Moreover, the paper finds that this differential role of a firm’s alliance network remains invariant across the three industries, enhancing the generalizability of the empirical results.
Events
World Knowledge Competitiveness Index 2005
Robert Huggins Associates
The World Knowledge Competitiveness Index (WKCI) is an integrated and overall benchmark of the knowledge capacity, capability and sustainability of 125 regions across the globe. It also looks at the extent to which this knowledge is translated into economic value, and transferred into the wealth of the citizens of these regions, utilizing 19 knowledge economy benchmarks. These indicators include employment levels in the knowledge economy, patent registrations, R&D investment by private and public sectors, education expenditures, ICT infrastructure, and access to private equity.
European Innovation Scorecard 2005
The most recent iteration of the European Innovation Scorecard comes with a strengthened methodology and a revised list of 26 indicators. It confirms that Sweden , Finland and Switzerland are the European innovation leaders, followed by Germany and Denmark . Most of the new member States are engaged in the catching up process, however following a low rhythm that will not allow for short-term convergence in Europe . In addition, if these trends for the 25 Member States remain stable, the innovation gap with the US will not close within the next 50 years. The EIS 2005 comes with a new analysis of innovation efficiency, capturing how countries are good at transforming their innovation assets into innovation results (Innovation inputs and outputs) . Switzerland , Denmark , Germany , Ireland , Italy or the Netherlands are especially high performers in this respect. One possible explanation of their success is that most of them benefit from an above average innovation demand from their population, as measured by the Innobarometer 2005. A particular emphasis has also been given to 5 key dimensions of innovation, which are further explored in the EIS (innovation drivers, knowledge creation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Applications, IPR) (Five key dimensions of innovation) . Some new evidences show that an even performance on all dimensions is a positive driver for a strong overall innovation performance, therefore suggesting to rather investing in areas of marked weaknesses.
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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.