Innovation,R&D and Technology Transfer: Policies towards a Regional Innovation System. The Case of Lombardy

The evolution of Lombardy's economic structure and international position led the regional government to build up a network of public and private stakeholders in the effort of promoting the creation of new knowledge and supporting innovation at local level. In this article a technology picture of the region and the main policy actions undertaken in recent years in Lombardy to promote a nest of linkages within actors, moving along the approach of regional innovation systems are presented.     

Multi-level Science Policy and Regional Innovation: The Case of the Munich Cluster for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology

Knowledge-based industries tend to develop within regional or local clusters that allow for knowledge spillovers, the generation of a critical mass of complementary competencies and skills as for spatial proximity to academic organizations out of which many highly innovative firms have been founded. The prototype of that development certainly is the biotechnology industry which has emerged since the 1970s first in the US where especially small and medium-sized research companies have been established around leading science bases. Following the example of the US biotechnology industry, public policies in many industrialized countries aimed at stimulating cluster formation in biotechnology. This holds true especially for member states of the European Union (EU) where public policy initiatives have been initiated at different territorial levels. This article refers to the Munich pharmaceutical biotechnology cluster and applies institutional and organizational indicators that have been developed in various systemic analyses of technological development and innovation. It will be shown that reforms of the institutional environment in which the innovative organizations are embedded were crucial for the commercialization of biotechnological research in Germany. These reforms have occurred mostly at the regional and national level, whereas the EU played a role especially in establishing the regulatory framework for the biotechnology industry. Organizational indicators will be applied in order to assess the modes of knowledge production within the cluster.     

Poverty Reduction and SAM Multipliers: An Evaluation of Public Policies in a Regional Framework

The objective of this paper is to obtain several poverty reduction effects by using multipliers based on social accounting matrices. Expressions relating them to Foster, Greer and Thorbecke poverty measures were derived, and two simulations were carried out for the Spanish region of Extremadura. In the first, we posited a per capita transfer equivalent to certain social policy instruments already existing in this region. Structural path analysis is also used to determine the paths by which poverty reduction effects are transmitted. In the second, we calculate the minimum government expenditure in transfers needed to reduce the regional poverty indices to the national values. The results confirmed that the main feature of poverty in Extremadura is incidence.     

Innovating in Cluster/Cluster as Innovation: The Case of the Biotechvalley Cluster Initiative

It has been noted that innovation seems to take place to a higher degree in clusters than elsewhere and we have lately seen a worldwide wave of emerging cluster initiatives and similar innovation policy projects. Some of these are realistic efforts based on existing regional strengths and partly existing cluster structures. Most, however, are grasping at straws. The latter is especially true when it comes to technologies such as IT and biotech. We could subsequently add a new label—“pathetic clusters”—to the already existing list of embryonic, emerging, world-class or stagnating clusters. But what do we make of such “pathetic clusters” (are they really pathetic)? Although economic geographers often tend to explain innovation (competitiveness) by looking at cluster dynamics, in such accounts, the cluster concept itself can actually function as an innovation, imposing similar effects on the economy as more familiar types of innovation would, i.e. by creating a local competitive edge. It is reasonable to believe that if “pathetic clusters” play important roles in regional economies, then they do so in the form of social and organizational innovations rather than as Porterian drivers of innovation and industrial dynamics on a large scale. This function of the cluster concept—as a local innovation—is the focus of the paper at hand.     

Multi-sectoral Cluster Modelling: The Evaluation of Scottish Enterprise Cluster Policy

This article describes the ex post cluster evaluation framework being developed by Scottish Enterprise. It focuses primarily on the macro level evaluation and, in particular, on the use of multi-sectoral modelling techniques to identify the effects of cluster policy on key indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), unemployment and competitiveness. The Scottish Input-Output (I-O) table is a key element in this approach. The strengths and weaknesses of I-O data, both as a basis for this analysis and as a means of identifying important intra-cluster linkages are explored. Further, the article describes methods for visual representation of the linkages identified using such a method.     

Reconceptualizing Participation for Sustainable Rural Development: Towards a Negotiation Approach

In many popular intervention methodologies aimed at stimulating sustainable rural development (in the widest possible sense) the idea of ‘participation’ is a leading principle. This article will demonstrate that the process in which actors are supposed to participate is often thought of as being a process of planning, decision‐making and/or social learning. It will be argued that such an operationalization of development processes is based on inconsistent theoretical assumptions, and can easily lead to unproductive development interventions due to an inability to handle conflicts. As an alternative it is proposed to use negotiation theory as a basis for organizing participatory development efforts. The implications of such a shift in thinking about participation are far‐reaching: it requires new modes of analysis, and different roles, tasks and skills for facilitators of participatory processes.     

The Toulouse Cluster of On-board Systems: A Process of Collective Innovation and Learning

Analysis by product or by type of activity is becoming less and less pertinent when characterizing the production organization of industrial clusters and local productive systems. In numerous regions and metropolitan areas, the way that economic activities are based geographically reveals relationships which go across different sectors of activity, on the basis of the similarity of skills required. At Toulouse, on-board systems, mainly sets of equipment composed of electronic and computer components integrated into an aircraft, a satellite or an automobile, were first developed on a sectorial basis before becoming progressively the subject of transverse skills and knowledge between the different industrial sectors (aeronautics, space, automobile electronics). Today this system is tending to consolidate on the basis of positive externalities such as the sharing of common subcontracting of information technology services, the collaboration of industrial firms with engineering science institutions, the circulation of personnel within the local labour market. To this must be added a strong institutional input which is manifested by the addition of an “on-board systems” section to the Competitive Cluster “Aeronautics and Space” common to the Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine regions. In the case of Toulouse, the “on-board systems” activities form the basis of a local organization of these high-technology activities into a local skills system.     

The Dynamics of Regional Invention and Innovation: Innovative Capacity and Regional Change in the Twentieth Century

The twentieth century dynamics of United States regional invention trends are explored in this study. Historically, regions that become major loci of invention have always gained much influence, through innovation diffusion, their human capital infrastructures, and their national economic and political projection. The United States has experienced a remarkable inversion of regional roles on invention since the middle of the twentieth century, where the predominant position of heartland regions (the Northeast and the Midwest) is being overturned. This analysis develops a macro-level measure of inventive output, innovative capacity, to evaluate changes in regional inventive performance and the potential for innovation. The analysis of patent age cycles provides insights on the temporal structure of the national and regional innovative capacity, and on the dynamics of crisis periods for U.S. scientific and technological invention. A consideration of regional income trends over the twentieth century and of innovative capacity performance shows the potential importance of endogenously generated inventions for regional development.     

Challenging the Australian Government Approach Towards Expatriate Voting: The Case of Italy

In 1999 the Australian government dropped its objections to the Italian legislation that contemplated postal voting and parliamentary representation for its Italian citizens resident abroad. This was a significant turning point for the Australian government approach on the question of voting rights for expatriate communities in Australia voting in their homeland elections. Based on undisclosed government sources and interviews with former Australian diplomatic and government officials, this paper will recall and examine the Australian government's reaction to the Italian political debates leading up to, and eventual passage of, the Italian expatriate vote legislation.     

Spatial Spillovers and Regional Growth: A Cognitive Approach

Spatial spillover effects are widely studied in the literature, as an important source of externality and therefore of discrepancy between private and social optimum, creating the emergence for ad-hoc policy interventions. Within the literature, their spatially-bounded nature is highly emphasised, but the mechanisms for their spatial diffusion are generally considered as a black box, with no reference to territorialized channels through which these externalities spread around. The study aims to present a literature review on the spatial spillover concept, emphasising two main stages of reflection, the so-called spatial approach and the functional approach. This work identifies in a third approach, the cognitive approach, a new perspective to the interpretation of spatial spillovers and their conditions, and on this approach it elaborates theoretically and empirically. The main assumption is that the capabilities of economic agents to absorb and utilize spillovers—implicitly assumed by the spatial spillover theory to be invariant with respect to space—in reality highly depend on strongly territorialized and un-imitable assets, such as local trust, sense of belonging and creativity. This assumption is tested empirically on all NUTS 2 of the 27 European member countries, thanks to a regional forecasting growth model developed by the author, called MASST.     

Biotechnology Megacentres: Montreal and Toronto Regional Systems of Innovation

Canada hosts two major diversified biotechnology regional systems of innovation in its two largest cities. Similar in many respects, they display some particular characteristics. We review here the main theories on regional innovation systems and innovative clusters and proceed to analyse these two regional systems before concluding on the usefulness of several theories to study biotechnology regional innovation systems.|spagf|ro|epagf|     

The Role of Regional Policies in Promoting Networking and Innovative Activity: Evidence from Small Finnish High-tech Firms

The success of high-technology firms is strongly dependent on their innovation capacity and network relationships. There is a growing recognition that few firms are able to innovate in isolation. Cooperation can provide access to a complementary knowledge base and resources, and speed up the innovation process of firms. Regional developers are criticized for their inadequate ability to integrate themselves into the regional networks and innovation processes of firms and their ability to determine firms' needs for innovation and networking. The research topic of this study concentrates on the possibilities of regional developers of influencing the operational environment of high-tech firms through the development of networks and innovation activity of firms. Of particular interest are the micro-level policies and concrete actions by regional developers for meeting the needs of firms. The data used are based on interviews addressed to high-tech firms located in Jyväskylä Science Park in Finland.     

Knowledge Production in European Regions: The Impact of Regional Strategies and Regionalization on Innovation

In the last 15 years, the regional scale was used to implement innovation strategies in European Union. Departing from the discussion of the relevance of innovation policy at the regional level, the article benefits from the knowledge production function framework to estimate patterns considering 175 European regions. It is intended to understand whether regional innovation strategies developed and applied between 1994 and 2001 were successful at an aggregated level in contributing for knowledge creation measured in terms of patents and high technology patents. The results underline the relevance of private R&D expenditure and medium and high technology employment to increase patent numbers. The models suggest also that administrative regionalization may be important to regional innovation and that the creation and implementation of a regional strategy have a positive contribution for high tech innovation.     

With or Without Clusters: Facilitating Innovation through a Differentiated and Combined Network Approach

Over the past decades, economic and innovation policy across Europe moved in the direction of creating regional clusters of related firms and institutions. Creating clusters through public policy is risky, complex and costly, however. Moreover, it is not necessary to rely on clusters to stimulate innovation. A differentiated and combined network approach to enhancing innovation and stimulating economic growth may be more efficient and effective, especially though not exclusively in regions lacking clusters. The challenge of such a policy is to mitigate the bottlenecks associated with “global pipeline”, “local buzz” and “stand alone” strategies used by innovative firms and to combine these strategies with a view to their complementarity in terms of knowledge effects. Private and semi-public brokers will be key in the evolving policy, as timely organizational change is crucial for continued innovation, while brokers also need to mitigate governance problems. This requires region-specific knowledge in terms of sectors, life cycles, institutional and socio-cultural factors, and yields spatially differentiated and differentiating adjustment strategies. The role of public policy is to assist in recruiting, provide start-up funding and monitor brokers. With this, policy moves towards a decentralized, process-based, region-specific, spatially diverging and multi-level system of innovation that is geared towards the evolving innovation strategies of firms.     

60年代前期党对知识分子政策的反思和调整

60年代前期 ,党对知识分子政策进行了反思和调整 ,成为贯彻知识分子政策最自觉、最全面的时期之一。 1 958年秋冬至 1 960年党对知识分子政策的反思和重新认识 ,为 1 961年开始的知识分子政策调整准备了条件。 1 961年开始的调整主要从制定科研、教育、文艺的工作条例 ;为知识分子“脱帽加冕”及为被错误批判的知识分子甄别平反等方面进行。 60年代前期知识分子政策的调整 ,范围广 ,力度大 ,措施实 ,取得了良好的效果     

Regional Innovation Systems and Economic Performance: Between Regions and Nations

This article aims at assessing the diversity of regional innovation systems and their economic performance in Europe. We propose to adapt the social systems of innovation and production (SSIP) framework at the regional level by identifying the specific arrangements of each part of the innovation and production system. Three key features of European regions are investigated using this framework: the diversity of regional SSIP, the interplay of regional and national determinants of such systems, and the impact of SSIP on regional performance. We identify a typology of regional configurations resulting from the combination of scientific, technological, educational and industrial indicators, using multivariate data analysis. A variance analysis approach is then developed in order to test the existence of specific regional growth regimes. The results highlight a persistently high level of diversity of regional configurations, notably among knowledge intensive regions, but also show that national institutional settings remain of fundamental importance in shaping a number of regional configurations. A final conclusion relates to the weak correlation observed between the structural characteristics of regions and their performance over the 2003–2007 period: regional performance remains primarily shaped by national trends. Overall, the paper questions the regional dimension of these “systems”.