Knowledge Clusters And Regional Innovation

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.

The initial mandate of the network was to share research results and analyses into the essential elements of the diverse regional systems of innovation across the country and to identify their points of commonality and difference with particular emphasis on comparisons between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. [...] For the most part, these new initiatives have been interpreted as a new development sui generis, or as part of the growing decentralization and fragmentation of the federation - itself the result of the decline of state capacity in Canada generated by the broader forces of globalization and the ICT revolution. [...] A proper understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the innovative potential within a regional system of innovation requires a more detailed analysis and understanding of the nature of the linkages among firms within clusters and how the emerging division of labour among them both influences (and constrains) their innovation and growth potential. [...] While the theoretical framework of innovation systems and clusters emphasizes the historical (and path-dependent) evolution of innovative production systems, there is a decided tendency in the work on clusters in the policy sphere to adopt a more static framework based on the compilation of lists of factors contributing to the development of innovative local economies. [...] However, the report overlooked the complex influence of the university on the regional system of innovation as a whole, by providing sources of knowledge, skilled workers and leadership for the process of innovation.

This book begins with a theoretical examination of regional innovation systems, agglomeration economics and knowledge spillovers, before going on to examine the same concepts within an empirical framework. Special emphasis is given to the importance of proximity in the formation of regional innovation systems. It concludes by considering innovation and human capital as determinants of regional economic growth. The concept of knowledge spillovers is used within the book to explain a number of major economic phenomena, including the geographical clustering of inventions; the social returns to R&D that significantly exceed private returns; and the sizeable disproportions that exist between firms in terms of their R&D inputs and outputs. The contributors identify that small firms are responsible for far more product innovations than large firms relative to their measurable knowledge resources. The book also stresses the importance of a catch-up mechanism that sees technological improvement as the combination of two distinct types of activity: innovation and imitation. In this way, the impact of human capital and other types of knowledge acquisition on economic growth is measured. The conclusions of the contributors are invaluably oriented to policy implications. This book will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students of regional science and innovation and knowledge, as well as policymakers.

The world's leading experts contribute to our understanding of regional innovation, cluster formation and the factors that influence regional productivity and innovative performance. The text improves our understanding of the reasons why, how and where innovation clusters emerge, as well as the factors that determine their respective success or failure. In doing so, it provides a timely and comprehensive picture on innovation, location, networks and clusters as important means in an environment of intensifying interregional competition. The book is written for professional researchers as well as for students and practitioners in politics, business and consultancy.

Examining the role of the much-vaunted concepts of regional clusters in the prosperity and economic expansion of countries, this work looks at the different experiences of industrial districts and high-tech regions such as Silicon Valley, Boston's biotech region, and Hsinchu-Taipei.

America's position as the source of much of the world's global innovation has been the foundation of its economic vitality and military power in the post-war. No longer is U.S. pre-eminence assured as a place to turn laboratory discoveries into new commercial products, companies, industries, and high-paying jobs. As the pillars of the U.S. innovation system erode through wavering financial and policy support, the rest of the world is racing to improve its capacity to generate new technologies and products, attract and grow existing industries, and build positions in the high technology industries of tomorrow. Rising to the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policy for Global Economy emphasizes the importance of sustaining global leadership in the commercialization of innovation which is vital to America's security, its role as a world power, and the welfare of its people. The second decade of the 21st century is witnessing the rise of a global competition that is based on innovative advantage. To this end, both advanced as well as emerging nations are developing and pursuing policies and programs that are in many cases less constrained by ideological limitations on the role of government and the concept of free market economics. The rapid transformation of the global innovation landscape presents tremendous challenges as well as important opportunities for the United States. This report argues that far more vigorous attention be paid to capturing the outputs of innovation - the commercial products, the industries, and particularly high-quality jobs to restore full employment. America's economic and national security future depends on our succeeding in this endeavor.

This original and timely book presents the most comprehensive, empirically based analysis of clustering dynamics in the high-technology sector across liberal and co-ordinated market economies.

First Published in 1999. The process of globalization is shaped and reinforced by a rapidly changing knowledge environment. As economies become less constrained national frontiers they become more geographically specialized. Thus, important elements of the innovation process tend to become regional rather than national. In this new environment, large corporations are weakening their links with their home country, spreading their innovation activities to source different regional systems of innovation. Regional networks of forms are creating new forms of learning and production. The aim of this book is to broaden, both conceptually and empirically, the 'national systems of innovation' approach, developed by Lundvall, Freeman, Nelson and others. While recognizing the creative nature of economic adjustment in a turbulent world and the highly uneven distribution of economic growth, the national systems approach lacks a mechanism by which to understand innovation when realistic unit of analysis is no longer the nation state. Written by leading scholars in the field, this book provides a ground-breaking examination of sub-regional systems of innovation in an interconnected global economy.