Technological Strengths in Mature Sectors--An Impediment or an Asset for Regional Economic Restructuring? The Case of Multimedia and Biotechnology in Baden-Wurttemberg

Baden-Württemberg's innovation system, which is characterised by a high degree of institutionalisation as well as a predominance of incremental innovations and medium technology finds itself in a profound process of transition. The paper discusses whether Baden-Württemberg's strength as an industrial district dominated by mature industries is an impediment or rather an asset with regard to developing new promising technological sectors in the region. The paper focuses on two newly emerging sectors: multimedia and biotechnology. Because of the strong orientation of actors in Baden-Württemberg to established companies in the core industries and the dominance of established organizational networks there is a lack of stimuli for developing new industries. Thus, institutional innovation and new networks are required to speed up the growth of the new industries. Baden-Württemberg can be expected to cope with the transition to the extent that it builds a close connection between its existing sectoral strengths and the new growth industries.     

Regional Innovation Systems: General Findings and Some New Evidence from Biotechnology Clusters

This paper focuses on interactive innovation. It starts by operationalising Regional Innovation in the context of multi-level governance. It shows how regional and external innovation interaction among firms and other innovation organizations is important for regional innovation potential. The ability to access and use funding for innovation support for regional firms and organizations is crucial for regional innovation promotion. Equity investment funding is more important than public funding, which tends to be cautious and otherwise risk avoiding, except in circumstances of market arrest or failure to develop. Regional systems of innovation are broader than single sectors or clusters but some of these will be strategically privileged recipients of policy support because of their growth performance or potential, rather than, as in the past, their uncompetitiveness. The paper devotes space to exploring biotechnology clustering from a regional innovation systems viewpoint, as an instance of rather strong sectoral, regional innovation systems capabilities, though integrated also to global knowledge supply and markets. Illustration is provided of the way such sectoral innovation systems work at local regional level by reference to cases from Cambridge, Massachusetts and Cambridge, England.     

新冠疫情视角下生物技术风险化解与法律规制

生物技术风险应对必须走到科技的前面去,在风险预防的基础上审慎推动新冠疫情防治生物技术的发展创新;对生物安全威胁的防控更应走到法律的内部去,在法律规范下妥善处置新冠疫情中的生物技术风险.重塑发展生物技术的原则和态度,防范和化解生物技术应用产生的阴霾,创设适宜的生物技术生长的法治空间,实现在法律规制下的生物技术与人类社会的...     

Organizing knowledge spillovers when basic and applied research are interdependent: German biotechnology policy in historical perspective

The German biotechnology lag illuminates the difficulties of finding appropriate organizational forms of R&D for “embryo” innovations requiring the continued involvement of basic research scientists even after innovation has advanced to the stage of commercial product development. The analysis charts the German policy shift from largely unsuccessful “corporatist” networks (1970s and 1980s) to more promising “emergent” networks (1990s) as organizational vehicles for conducting biotechnology innovation. A constant of German R&D policy for most of the 20th century, and one underlying the initial reliance on corporatist networks in biotechnology, was the tendency to exclude universities from major R&D initiatives and rely instead on specialized research institutes. The structural inflexibilities of universities, combined with the early successes of many specialized research institutes from the 1880s on, led to path-dependent reliance on the latter for 20th-century reforms of the German national innovation system.      

Eco-systems for young digital innovators

This contribution takes a closer look at innovation in ICT sectors and the failing ability of young innovative firms in Europe to grow into leading world innovators in these sectors. The analysis suggests that Europe might be missing strong digital regional clusters with a symbiotic relationship between young ICT innovators and incumbent ICT leading companies.     

‘The Biosciences Knowledge Value Chain and Comparative Incubation Models’

This research derives from an EU DG Enterprise (IPS Programme) project on bio-incubation, called Bio-Link. The Bio-Link project is innovative in three ways. First, it involves an international comparative analysis of biotechnology incubators of the kind that is rarely if ever done. Second, the incubator representatives are monitored and investigated by an academic partnership team. Third, there is a stated aspiration by the incubator companies to engage in co-incubation across borders. Co-incubation is, as far as we are aware, a new kind of boundary crossing innovation in which advanced start-up businesses are assisted to enter other national markets and/or benefit from specialised services or scientific, technological, or commercial knowledge absent in the home country but present in a partner country. Evidence from research on European, Israeli and North American bioincubators is included to compare, contrast and enable future judgements of incubator appropriateness to biotechnology.     

Biotechnology,Bioethics and Law: Europe's 21st Century Challenge*

Advances in biotechnology make possible many things which even a few years ago would have seemed unimaginable. However, the steady advance of biotechnological innovation raises difficult questions for ethicists and regulators. In the thirty‐fourth Chorley Lecture Noelle Lenoir analyses the European response to these challenges and calls upon European leaders to honour their commitment to human dignity and to give leadership in the emergent fields of embryo research, cloning and genetic enhancement.     

Structural change, technology, and economic growth: Brazil and the CIBS in a comparative perspective

Schumpeterian growth theory stresses the role of structural change in long run growth. Countries which increase the share of technology-intensive sectors in their economic structures benefit more from technological learning and innovation. In addition, they are more able to respond to changes in the international markets and to compete in sectors whose demand grows at higher rates. The paper compares Brazil (and to a lesser extent the CIBS group of countries) from the point of view of the direction and intensity of structural change. It is suggested that structural change has been relatively weak in Brazil and that this has been associated with a less dynamic growth performance since the 1980s.     

Investment in innovation

This paper reviews briefly the importance of the U.S.investment in innovation. It then reiterates some of the statistics that support a growing concern related to the declining growth rate of innovation. The importance of business investment in the innovation process is identified as a key element in economic progress. Several charts and graphs are used to illustrate this point. Factors that influence investment are discussed. Finally specific recommendations are made that should be considered by both the public and private sectors.     

Gaps, inexperience, inconsistencies, and overlaps: crisis in the regulation of genetically modified plants and animals

The regulation of genetically modified products pursuant to statutes enacted decades prior to the advent of biotechnology has created a regulatory system that is passive rather than proactive about risks, has difficulty adapting to biotechnology advances, and is highly fractured and inefficient--transgenic plants and animals are governed by at least twelve different statutes and five different agencies or services. The deficiencies resulting from this piecemeal approach to regulation unnecessarily expose society and the environment to adverse risks of biotechnology and introduce numerous inefficiencies into the regulatory system. These risks and inefficiencies include gaps in regulation, duplicative and inconsistent regulation, unnecessary increases in the cost of and delay in the development and commercialization of new biotechnology products. These deficiencies also increase the risk of further unnecessary biotechnology scares, which may cause public overreaction against biotechnology products, preventing the maximization of social welfare. With science and society poised to soar from first-generation biotechnology (focused on crops modified for agricultural benefit), to next-generation developments (including transgenic fish, insects, and livestock, and pharmaceutical-producing and industrial compound-producing plants and animals), it is necessary to establish a comprehensive, efficient, and scientifically rigorous regulatory system. This Article details how to achieve such a result through fixing the deficiencies in, and risks created by, the current regulatory structure. Ignoring many details, the solutions can be summarized in two categories. First, statutory and regulatory gaps that are identified must be closed with new legislation and regulation. Second, regulation of genetically modified products must be shifted from a haphazard model based on statutes not intended to cover biotechnology to a system based upon agency expertise in handling particular types of risks.     

Never mind the quality feel the width: University–industry links and government financial support for innovation in small high-technology businesses in the UK and the USA

In this paper we use a size and industry matched sample of over 1,900 UK and US businesses for the period 2004–05 in the manufacturing and business services sectors to analyse the relative “strength” of the university–industry ecosystems in which these firms operate in the two economies. Our analysis shows that in both countries universities per se play a quantitatively smaller role as a source of knowledge for business innovation than either the business sector itself or a variety of organisations intermediating between the university and business sectors. Our analysis reveals a much more diffuse university–industry ecosystem in the UK in which a higher proportion of businesses claim links external to themselves in their pursuit of knowledge for innovation and a higher proportion report directly connecting with universities. US firms are more likely to access knowledge through a combination of business and intermediary sources and are less likely to have established formal collaborative or partnership agreements in the 3 years prior to the survey. We also find, however, that a higher proportion of US firms place a very high value on the connections they have with universities and are much more likely to commit resources to support such innovation related university interactions. A similar pattern of diffuse but weaker links characterise the supply of public sector financial assistance for innovation in our sample firms. UK firms are more likely to be in receipt of assistance, but receive far less per firm in absolute terms and relative to their R&D expenditures. It appears that the UK university–industry ecosystem is characterised by a greater width than quality of interaction.     

Screening technology transfers: Lessons from invention managers

Innovative ideas will not be transferred between organizations unless they pass the screening tests managers use to choose innovations for transfer. This paper suggests that most screening methods have been developed for analyzing incremental improvements in existing businesses. As such, these methods militate against the transfer of new technologies. The paper describes screening methods in use at invention-management organizations as an alternative. These methods stress the development of business concepts for innovations, i.e., the integration of product specifications with the targeted market's characteristics, the user's capability, and convergent technologies that use and/or are used by the innovation. His recent work includes an OECD study of the innovation policies of the western provinces of Canada and a study of the commercialization of agricultural biotechnology for the US Department of Agriculture.     

The role of firm and national level factors in fostering R&D cooperation: a cross country comparison

This paper explores the factors that affect firms’ propensity to engage in R&D cooperation using a CIS-3 sample of innovative firms located in seven European countries. It performs the analysis separately for the manufacturing and the service sectors in order to examine whether there are specific features that shape the service firms’ R&D cooperative behaviour in particular ways. Differences between the manufacturing and the service sectors in the cooperative behaviour of firms become much more evident once an appropriate structure of endogeneity is determined. We compare different countries because, so far, the empirical evidence produced comes from single countries or countries that are all quite homogeneous in terms of industrial structure. Instead, we consider also countries, such as transition economies, that have not been analyzed so far. We find that public subsidies positively affect firms’ propensity to engage in R&D cooperation in all countries, but they seem particularly important to enhance firms’ cooperativeness in the service sector. Implications for innovation policy are examined.     

University-industry linkages in nanotechnology and biotechnology: evidence on collaborative patterns for new methods of inventing

The nanotechnology and biotechnology “revolutions” are so-called because their enabling technological breakthroughs were not simply inventions, but discoveries of entirely new methods of inventing. We hypothesize that university participants in either or both of these areas will exhibit greater collaboration with industry than researchers in other areas. We explore this hypothesis for 454 faculty members who conducted research that was patented during the period 1994–1999. Because our data include patents, publications, and funding at the individual level, we are able to examine the industry interaction of faculty who participated in the nanotechnology and biotechnology revolutions, as well as the interaction of faculty contributing to other areas of patentable science. We examine a variety of linkages, including sponsored research, consulting, publication with firm employees and measures of the potential for cross-campus collaboration. The results are striking in that they show significant differences in collaborative behavior across patent types and across the major program areas biological sciences, physical sciences and engineering. The results are consistent with a greater degree of tacit knowledge within the new methods of inventing. We also find significant differences in the embryonic nature and importance of patents across areas.     

Technology transfer perspectives in globalising India (drugs and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology)

The paper briefly outlines the status of technology transfer related issues in drugs & pharma and biotechnology sectors in India. The paper also outlines the contemporary business strategies including R&D and technology transfer models. The study indicates that present technology transfer policies and mechanisms are weak and need to be restructured. The current fiscal incentives and tax concessions etc. available for R&D in industry seem to have outlived and are no longer attractive because of continuous lowering of tariff rates and tax rates in the context of WTO and liberalization of policies. Moreover, the issue of R&D support to industry is not covered in the WTO as in case of subsidies. Therefore, it is advisable for the government to revisit the existing promotional measures for R&D. FDI policies also need to be tailored to encourage Technology transfers and capability building. Recommendations are made for making Technology Transfer more effective for the growth and competitiveness of the industry. A technology transfer management model is suggested.      

Regional Innovation Systems: The Integration of Local ‘Sticky’ and Global ‘Ubiquitous’ Knowledge

The paper examines how firms in three regional clusters in Norway dominated by shipbuilding, mechanical engineering and electronics industry, respectively exploit both place-specific local resources as well as external, world-class knowledge to strengthen their competitiveness. From these case-studies we make four points: (1) Ideal-typical regional innovation systems, i.e., regional clusters surrounded by supporting local organisations, is rather uncommon in Norway. (2) External contacts, outside of the local industrial milieu, are crucial in innovation processes also in many SMEs. (3) Innovation processes may nevertheless be regarded as regional phenomena in regional clusters, as regional resources and collaborative networks often have decisive significance for firms' innovation activity. (4) Regional resources include in particular place-specific, contextual knowledge of both tacit and codified nature, that, in combination, is rather geographically immobile.     

公共政策的工程品格

公共政策具有工程活动的所有特征,政策活动是改造社会的工程活动。社会科学是公共政策的理论指导,公共政策是社会科学理论在实践中的综合应用。公共政策学应借鉴工程学的研究方法,实现公共政策理论与实践上的创新。     

New challenges for universities in the knowledge triangle

This paper discusses the role of higher education institutions within the framework of the knowledge triangle between academic education, scientific research and innovation, as it has gained importance in recent years as a framework for innovation policies especially in the OECD and Europe. First, complementary concepts of universities’ outreach activities and extended role model such as ‘third mission’, ‘triple helix’, ‘entrepreneurial or civic university’ models and ‘smart specialization’ are reflected against their fit with the concept of the knowledge triangle, also with respect to new requirements for university governance. Second, a new understanding of spillovers between public sectors research and the business sector according to knowledge triangle is presented.

     

生物技术对专利制度的挑战与中国专利法修改探讨

蓬勃发展的现代生物技术已对传统专利制度形成了挑战。美国率先对基因、转基因技术授予专利 ,欧盟随之对生物技术发明出台法律保护指令 ,中国虽早有水稻等基因技术产品的发明与大面积种植 ,却在 2 0 0 1年修订的专利法中回避了生物技术发明的可专利性 ,使生物技术陷入努力开发但得不到充分法律保护的窘境。因此 ,阐明生物技术对专利制度的挑战 ,比较欧盟立法 ,探讨中国生物技术专利保护对生物技术发展的影响 ,及生物技术专利的国际合法性 ,对中国专利法修改提出意见 ,当前亟具意义