Biotechnology And Innovation Systems

This book explores how policies targeting public research institutions, such as universities, contribute to the appropriation of biotechnology through national innovation systems. Around the world, biotechnology has become a driving force for dramatic change in systems and policies intended to spur innovation. The leading contributors expertly construct a detailed picture of policy approaches that support biotechnology and how such approaches work under different economic and social conditions. They also provide an insight into the role of universities in this process. Researchers, academics, students, policy advisors, decision-makers and other professionals involved, and working in, the fields of biotechnology, innovation systems, higher education and development will find this book an invaluable resource.

This publication examines the innovation system in pharmaceutical biotechnology in eight OECD countries - Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain - and makes recommendations advocating an integrated policy approach.

. . . recommended to anyone interested in the thrilling subject of the relationship of IPRs and innovation. Ralf Uhrich, Journal of Intellectual Property This is an outstanding piece of scholarship. It will serve as a powerful stimulant for new research in the field and as a reliable guide for practitioners. Calestous Juma, Harvard University, US Intellectual property rights (IPRs), particularly patents, occupy a prominent position in innovation systems, but to what extent they support or hinder innovation is widely disputed. Through the lens of biotechnology, this book delves deeply into the main issues at the crossroads of innovation and IPRs to evaluate claims of the positive and negative impacts of IPRs on innovation. An international group of scholars from a range of disciplines economic geography, health law, business, philosophy, history, public health, management examine how IPRs actually operate in innovation systems, not just from the perspective of theory but grounded in their global, regional, national, current and historical contexts. In so doing, the contributors seek to uncover and move beyond deeply held assumptions about the role of IPRs in innovation systems. Scholars and students interested in innovation, science and technology policy, intellectual property rights and technology transfer will find this volume of great interest. The findings will also be of value to decision makers in science and technology policy and managers of intellectual property in biotechnology and venture capital firms.

Regional innovation systems, Jorge Niosi shows, are evolutionary complex systems in which each group of agents reacts to the behaviour of others as well as to public policy incentives. Canada's Regional Innovation System finds that Canada's biotechnology capabilities are widely distributed but solidly planted in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, with smaller centres in Calgary and Edmonton. However, the specific institutional structures (innovative firms, research universities, and public laboratories) of regional systems vary from one industry to another and evolve through time. While aerospace and aircraft form two poles in Montreal and Toronto, Ottawa is Canada's centre for semiconductor and telecommunication innovation. Niosi explores how these regional configurations are shaped by national and provincial public policy incentives. The study is based on patent and company information as well as aggregate figures from Statistics Canada and other sources.

This publication examines the innovation system in pharmaceutical biotechnology in eight OECD countries - Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain - and makes recommendations advocating an integrated policy approach.

Technological Systems in the Bio Industries: An International Study represents a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and systematic effort to understand the nature and role of technological change in a rapidly evolving arena of economic activity that can be loosely referred to as the bio industries. These include biomedical industries that deliver goods and services used in health care, including those based on genetic engineering, as well as applications of biotechnology in other industries such as agriculture, food production, and the forest industries. This volume is the third in a continuing series of studies on technological systems; it seeks to identify and address new sets of conceptual and methodological issues in analyzing innovation systems, particularly as regards the delimitation of relevant systems. The book makes an in-depth comparison of the biomedical clusters in Sweden and Ohio. It also sheds light on the emergence of new science-based technological systems.

In The Capacity to Innovate, Sarah Giest provides insight into the collaborative and absorptive capacities needed to provide public support to local innovation through cluster organizations. The book offers a detailed view of the vertical, multi-level, and horizontal dynamics in clusters and cluster policy and addresses how they are managed and supported. Using the biotechnology field as an example, Giest highlights challenges in the collaborative efforts of public bodies, private companies, and research institutes to establish a successful ecosystem of innovation in this sector. The book argues that cluster policy in collaboration with cluster organizations should focus on absorptive and collaborative capacity elements missing in the cluster context in order to improve performance. Currently, governments operate at different levels – from the local to the supranational – in order to support clusters, and cluster policies are often pursued alongside other programs, leading to uncoordinated efforts and ineffective cluster strategies. The Capacity to Innovate advocates for a coordinated effort by government and cluster organizations to support capacity elements lacking within the specific cluster context.

Innovation is increasingly recognised as the key to successful competition in the global knowledge-based economy. In Knowledge, Clusters and Regional Innovation the authors illuminate the highly differentiated nature of the innovation systems found across the country and demonstrate that innovation can occur in a wide range of sectors and clusters, ranging from multimedia and biotechnology in large metropolitan areas to more traditional sectors such as wood products in rural settings.Written by members of the Innovation Systems Research Network (ISRN), a cross-national network of regionally oriented researchers from a wide range of disciplines, Knowledge, Clusters and Regional Innovation provides important insights into the varied nature of innovation in the Canadian economy. The members of the network have recently launched a major study of cluster development across Canada that promises to provide scholars and policymakers with continuing insights into the nature economic development in Canada.Contributors include Neil Bradford (Huron University College), Shauna Brail (Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Ontario), John N.H. Britton (University of Toronto), Michael Gurstein (Technical University of British Columbia), J. Adam Holbrook, Cooper H. Langford (University of Calgary), Lisa Mills (Brown University), Jorge Niosi (Université du Québec à Montréal), Pierre Therrien (Marketplace Innovation Directorate, Industry Canada), Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay (Université du Québec), and David A. Wolfe.