Reframing the Role of Universities in the Development of Regional Innovation Systems

The role of universities in regional innovation has evolved over the last 20 years. This evolution has seen the emergence of a third role of universities that has re-shaped and transformed their two traditional functions of teaching and research. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for analysing variation in the roles performed by universities in the development of regional innovation systems. This framework is based on the triple helix model of university, industry, government relations, the literature on university engagement and the innovation systems literature, more generally. The framework is applied to a comparative study of three non core-metropolitan universities in Australia. A number of insights and issues are drawn in regard to conceptualising the role of universities in regional systems.     

Regional Innovation Systems and the Advent of Strategic Science

While regional innovation systems are, to some extent, an artefact of regional administration and mimesis, there are also clear proximity and agglomeration dynamics. A third type of dynamic at play derives from uptake of knowledge production, regional role of universities etc. The advent of strategic science, with its double emphasis on relevance (including local relevance) and global competition, creates pressures on universities which want to play a regional role as well. The University of Twente, in The Netherlands, is an example. Its evolution shows that the regional function leans heavily on institutional differentiations like outreach units, while strategic science is taken up in new outward looking, problem-solving centres, not necessarily directed towards the region. The immediate moral is that universities can play a role in managing the tension between local (regional) and global, but the tensions will return internally. The general moral is that the changes in knowledge production (whether labeled as strategic science or Mode 2 or whatever) have to be taken into account in regional innovation systems. This might also help to avoid a short-sighted focus on wealth creation.     

Regional Innovation Systems in Central and Eastern Europe: Determinants, Organizers and Alignments

While proximity was an asset in socialism, during the post-socialist period the development of the region as a locus of innovation is essential for restructuring and sustainable growth of economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The paper analyzes the factors that determine the emergence of regional innovation systems in CEE. Based on a conceptual model of regional innovation system we explore four determinants: national, sectoral, micro and regional. These determinants operate as conditional advantages or disadvantages that require network organizers and network alignment in order to be turned into real advantages. The paper points to the important role of network organizers for enhancing regional innovation in the post-socialist economies. Policy implications of the model suggest that the emphasis should be on functions and programs rather than on new organizations.     

The Regional Innovation Paradox: Innovation Policy and Industrial Policy

This paper explores the regional innovation paradox and its policy implications. The regional innovation paradox refers to the apparent contradiction between the comparatively greater need to spend on innovation in lagging regions and their relatively lower capacity to absorb public funds earmarked for the promotion of innovation and to invest in innovation related activities compared to more advanced regions. Empirical analysis of the nature of the paradox shows that there are strong complementarities between business, education and government spending on R&D and that technology/innovation policy and industrial policies tend to work in opposite directions. Our analysis suggests that resolution of the paradox requires policies that: (i) increase the innovation capacity of regions by working both on the demand and the supply side of the system to increase both private and public sector investment in innovation activity; and (ii) integrate technology policy and industrial policy by encouraging expenditure on innovation activity within mainstream industrial policy programmes. The penultimate section of the paper outlines and assesses policy initiatives/experiments along these lines and suggests how they might be developed in the future.     

The Role and Future of the Upper House in Ireland

Ireland is a highly centralised unitary state and thus lacks the standard 'federal' justification of a Senate as a place in which the interests of the constituent states are represented. Nonetheless, Ireland has a Senate under the 1937 Constitution, comprising three types of senator: those indirectly elected from 'vocational' panels, those directly elected by graduates of the two traditional universities and those nominated by the Prime Minister. Its powers are extremely weak. Several attempts to reform the Irish Senate have failed, in large part as a result of an unwillingness of the political elite to change a situation in which politicians who are unsuccessful in election to the lower house can find a political home pending the next election. There does however remain a potential future role for the Senate - if it were to be directly elected and given important jobs to do such as the oversight of EU legislation.     

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.     

Contextualising Regional Innovation Systems in a Globalising Learning Economy: On Knowledge Bases and Institutional Frameworks

In order to advance the understanding of which types of regional innovation system represent effective innovation support for what kinds of industry in different regions analyses must be contextualized by reference to the actual knowledge base of various industries as well as to the regional and national institutional framework, which strongly shape the innovation processes of firms. Of special importance is the linkage between the larger institutional frameworks of the national innovation and business systems, and the character of regional innovation systems. In making the arguments about a general correspondence between the macro-institutional characteristics of the economy and the dominant form and character of its regional innovation systems a link is provided to the literature on ‘varieties of capitalism’ and national business systems.     

论法官在困难案件中的角色

在困难案件的处理中法官应扮演一种“保守主义型”的司法裁量者的角色。由于缺乏一种可靠的指导原则和方法,从而限制了法官在重大的法律问题上发挥积极的作用。“积极干涉型”的司法裁量者角色受到严格的制度限制,并将使法院陷入社会争议和冲突的漩涡,削弱其权威和地位,妨碍司法功能的正常发挥。     

社会管理创新中公证的价值与作用

经济体制深刻变革、社会结构深刻变动、利益格局深刻调整、思想观念深刻变化，这是我国改革发展关键时期的一些基本特征。当前，我国社会管理领域存在的一些突出问题，正是我国经济社会发展水平和阶段性特征的集中反映。时代发展给我国社会管理带来了一系列新课题，迫切需要我们在构建社会主义和谐社会的历史进程中，把加强和改进社会管理置于更加突出的位置。     

The Role of Case Complexity in Judicial Decision Making

The literature on ideology and decision making offers conflicting expectations about how judges' ideology should affect their votes in cases that raise many legal issues. Using cases from the U.S. courts of appeals, I examine the strength of ideology as a predictor of sincere voting in single and multi‐issue cases, and test whether the same effect for ideology can be seen for liberal and conservative judges. For all judges, ideology yields a larger effect as the number of issues increases; however, conservative judges are much more likely than liberal judges to cast sincere votes at all levels of complexity.     

The Federal Gendarmerie in Austria

Editor's Note: Mr. Robert Harnischmacher is a West German free-lance writer and lecturer in the Legal Sciences and Police Affairs, with a background in the German military and the Japanese martial arts. The author has been involved in developing unarmed combat skills for various German police forces and a number of foreign countries. His articles on self-defense, criminology and police history and administration have been published in the police publications of Germany, Austria, Australia, Canada, the United States, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland and Britain. Mr. Harnischmacher has also written some judicial books regarding the police in West Germany. He has traveled widely and delivered many speeches and lectures including highly selective and sensitive topics to highly selected audiences. He is currently an Honorary Deputy Sheriff of San Diego County in California as well as an Honor member of the San Diego Crime Commission. The Editor takes this opportunity to thank Mr. Harnischmacher for his contributions to the journal and anticipates his further cooperation in disseminating his experiences and expertise through the journal. Mr. Harnischmacher has published several articles through this journal in previous volumes.     

《美国联邦证据规则》中的关联性

关联性规则是英美证据法上的基本规则.有关联性的证据,通常具有可采性;没有关联性的证据,一般都不具有可采性.在很多情况下,具有关联性的证据也可因影响审判公正或者诉讼效率而被排除.同时,有些证据仅对案件事实的特定部分相关,因此只具有有限的关联性和有限的可采性.另外,有些证据关联性的有无有待于另外一些证据的出示,从而产生了附条件关联性和附条件可采性的规则.最后,<美国联邦证据规则>对于关联性的判断在立法上采取了逻辑关联主义的立场;在司法实践中,这一立场又体现为经验主义.所有这些因素都导致通过关联性规则排除证据变得十分困难.因此,仅仅通过关联性规则排除不可靠的证据显然是远远不够的.     

依法行政的观念、制度与实践创新

当前,进一步推进依法行政面临着许多新的任务和要求,需要重点解决依法行政的观念更新、制度推进与实践创新等问题.在观念上应当从“管制行政”转向“服务行政”,切实树立起“有限”、“有效”与“有责”等新型法治理念,并确立行政法定、行政均衡和行政正当等依法行政的基本原则.在制度建设方面需要进一步完善现有的立法,并制定事关法治政府建设全局的重要法律,通过立法有效地规范政府行政权力,全面构建起依法行政的制度基础.在执法实践创新方面,重点推进对行政裁量权的规范,加强对执法活动的监督,进一步建立健全多元化的纠纷解决机制,畅通公民诉求渠道,有效化解社会矛盾.     

Regional Technological Differences: The Case of Southern European Union

This paper examines the spatial spillover effects and the productivity rate of patents in southern European Union. It provides a systematic analysis of the relationship between productivity of patents and the factors that generate economically useful new technological knowledge. An applied spatial econometric framework is employed since this approach is particularly useful in the study of the spatial patterns of patents productivity, at the lowest possible levels of spatial aggregation.     

Business Development Capabilities in Information Technology SMEs in a Regional Economy: An Exploratory Study

“Business development” is a corporate entrepreneurial capability (or competence) that has emerged in the Information Technology industry to support that industry’s practice of co-creation of value with customers and complementors. As a set of practices that link the firm’s value creating processes with its external environment, business development capabilities are a key factor in the success of IT SMEs. This article examines business development functions and business developer attributes in SMEs in the Information Technology Industry in Eastern Canada. The principal business development functions are finding profitable opportunities in business networks, developing and maintaining partnerships, providing support for new product development, and recognizing and responding to customer needs. The regional market and export markets require different business development capabilities.     

Accountability and Systems of Self-Governance: The Case of the Maritime Industry

Environmental policy has predominantly been informed by a command-and-control policies. There are reasons to believe that the benefits of command-and-control regulations are diminishing or increasingly difficult to measure, whereas the cost of their enforcement is rising. In this paper, I argue that these problems could be overcome if it is recognized that the state is but one source of individual and organizational accountability. I illustrate this argument by discussing the case of the international marine industry. I argue that the marine industry is but one instance of a wide variety of systems of self-governance. In the final section, I outline an innovative approach to the management of environmental risks, and make suggestions for further investigations.     

Portfolio Allocation within Parties: The Role of Regional Party Branches

One of the most persistent findings in coalition research is the proportionality rule (‘Gamson's Law’) that guides the allocation of portfolios between parties. This article tests the assumption that a similar rule is at work within parties. More specifically, it examines the allocation of ministerial posts to regional party branches in 25 post-war cabinets in Austria between 1945 and 2008. Drawing on the literature on party organisations, three types of resources (membership, vote and population shares) are identified, all of which account for a substantial part of the variation in the shares of cabinet seats awarded to each party branch. The analysis thus bears out the proportionality proposition to a significant degree. Furthermore, it is shown that there is considerable cross-party variation in the allocation patterns, which reflects differences in the organisational structure of the parties.     

Outing Courtesy: The Role of Rude Dissent in Rule of Law Systems

This essay critically examines Keith Bybee's All Judges Are Political, Except When They Are Not. Although Bybee's creative use of the cultural form of courtesy helps us better understand the consensus‐building and legitimating features of rule‐of‐law systems, it overlooks the role that rude dissent can play in exposing the violent, exclusionary, and materially disadvantaging aspects of such systems. Using examples of outing closeted public figures and the rude AIDS activism of the 1990s, this essay explores the rule of law from the perspective of those who are subject to it.     

论中央在区域协调发展中的地位与职责

区域协调发展是新时代国家重大战略之一。它本身蕴含着丰富的中央与地方关系,也需要在央地关系视角下进行解析。在社会主义市场经济的内在结构中,发展的动力主要来自地方和社会,中央则主要负责促进和协调。在促进区域协调发展的过程中,中央处于枢纽性地位。党中央的集中统一领导是区域协调发展的政治保障,中央的立法权和行政权则是其制度载体和运行依托。区域发展不协调既是各地发展条件各异等现实因素的结果,也有国家政策倾斜的人为因素。中央首先应当扫除发展障碍,释放地方和社会的发展动能,为各地方创造平等的发展机会,同时应当对发展不协调进行精准的制度纠偏。区域协调发展目标具有长期性,必须健全促进区域协调发展的法律机制。