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Issue #8 November 15, 2000
Announcements
Studies
& Publications: Editor's Pick | E-
Commerce | Innovation & Related Policy | Biotechnology | IT
Events
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This newsletter is published by ONRIS at the Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, and jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology. The views and ideas expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Ontario Government.
Next issue: December 1st, 2000
ANNOUNCEMENTS [Table of Contents]
The
European Commission launches new innovation support program
Titled 'The Pilot Action
of Excellence for Innovative Start-ups', this program is designed to look
at mechanisms to facilitate the setting up and development of innovative
companies. It has two main objectives: to identify and network economic
areas which have created ideal environments for start-up and spin-off companies;
and to support projects which validate and promote novel strategies for
the encouragement of the creation of innovative firms.
EDITOR'S PICK [Table of Contents]
Assessment
of the Regional Innovation and Technology Transfer Strategies and Infrastructures
(RITTS) Scheme
RITTS is an EU initiative
launched in 1994 to provide regions with relatively small subsidies and
technical support for them to develop innovation strategies, through a
standardized process involving the support of an international team of
expert consultants. Among the positive impacts of the program was
in bringing a much needed move towards strategic thinking for innovation-oriented
regional development and, in offering mechanisms and incentives to create
a regional dialogue in fragmented regions (in geographic, institutional
and cultural senses).
E-COMMERCE [Table of Contents
INNOVATION & RELATED POLICY [Table of Contents]
Waves:
A Poisson Regression Approach to Schumpeterian Clustering of Basic Innovations
Silverberg G. & Verspagen
B, ECIS/MERIT
Contributing to the literature
on Shumpeterian theory of long waves, this paper challenges the theory
that a long wave in economic life is driven by clusters of basic innovation.
BIOTECHNOLOGY [Table of Contents]
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY [Table of Contents
R&D
Collaborations by SMEs in ICT industries: opportunities and limitations
Narula R, University
of Oslo and MERIT
This paper looks at the
impact of globalization on the way in which SMEs undertake innovation
in the ICT sector. Although SMEs have the advantages of being flexible
and responsive, the paper argues that there are also limitations due their
size, a constraint that has been enhanced due to increased cross-border
competition.
1999
- ICT Sector Gross Domestic Product
Here are the latest figures
on the Canadian ICT sector by Industry Canada. The ICT sector contribution
to the Canadian GDP in 1999 was $43.3 billion (in 1992 constant dollars).
This represents an increase of 20.4% from 1998 compared to 4.3% for the
overall Canadian GDP.
Wiring
rural communities - a case study
Berkshire, Massachusetts,
overcomes digital divide providing a model for helping bring poor rural
communities into the new economy.
EVENTS [Table of Contents]
CITO/OCRI
Techtalk Workshop on User Interface Technologies
November 21, Ottawa
This research TechTalk workshop
examines the range of issues surrounding the design of usable, accessible
and desirable systems from the user's perspective. Special topics that
will be addressed include key questions about home interaction devices
and the human and social issues of the broadband home, design issues for
new consumer wireless communications devices and, design issues affecting
successful services for the World Wide Web.
Innovation
and Enterprise Creation: statistics and indicators
November 23-24,
Sophia Antipolis, France
Organised by the Innovation
programme of DG Enterprise and Eurostat (with the assistance of Technopolis),
this conference aims to achieve an exchange of understanding and experience
between those developing and analysing innovation indicators, and those
who apply them in policy formulation. Contributions will be made
to the development of policy by concentrating on The focus will be on advances
in innovation indicators, the impact of innovation on firm performance,
results of national and regional Innovation studies and policy-orientated
innovation indicators.
CANARIE's
6th Advanced Networks Workshop: "The Networked Nation"
November 28-29,
Montreal
CANARIE, Canada's Advanced
Internet Development Organization, is hosting its 6th Annual Advanced Networks
Workshop. This year's theme, "The Networked Nation", will focus on application
architectures, "grids" made up of customer owned dark fiber and next generation
Internet networks like CA*net 3 that will ultimately lead to the development
of the networked nation where eventually every school, home and business
will have high bandwidth connection to the Internet.
Policy
Agendas for Sustainable Technological Innovation
December 1-3, London,
England
This is the third of four
conferences organized as part of the European POSTI project: "Policies
for Sustainable Technological Innovation". The London conference
will focus on the policy implications of Science, Technology and Society
(STS) research on socially, economically and environmentally acceptable
technological innovation. It will draw upon the body of recent and current
post-graduate and post-doctoral research in Europe as well as the work
of senior academic researchers in STS and professionals in the world of
policy research, development and implementation.
Ottawa
Life Science National Conference and Exhibition: The BioProducts Revolution
December 4-6, Ottawa
This will be the Ottawa
Life Science Council's 7th annual national conference. Sessions include
an examination of biotechnology's impact on the health and agriculture
fields and on the financing of biotech start-up companies.
Workshop:
Innovation, technological change and growth in knowledge based and service
intense economies
The Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm, February 1-2, 2001
This workshop seeks to stimulate
applied and theoretical research on the changing nature of innovation and
to bring researchers attention to the problems associated with measurement
of technological change and growth in the more knowledge based and service
intense economies. The main objective is to discuss problem related to:
innovation and growth indicators, data quality, concepts, models and theories
of growth, technological change and competitiveness at the firm level.
The participants of the workshop are invited to submit their abstracts
before December 1, 2000 to the workshop organisers to the following address:
hans.loof@lector.kth.se
<mailto:hans.loof@lector.kth.se>.
The
5th International Conference on Technology, Policy and Innovation
June 26-29, 2001, Netherlands
Congress Centre, The Hague
Theme: Critical Infrastructures
Abstract submission deadline:
December 15, 2000
The conference focuses on
infrastructures such as those enabling transportation of goods and people,
telecommunications, and the supply and distribution of energy and water
have become vital to the daily functioning and security of society.
Proposals are invited for workshops or presentations dealing with vulnerability,
institutional management, historical lessons, innovation, and methodologies
for interdisciplinary analysis and design, all related to critical infrastructures.
WILL YOU BE ONE OF OUR REGIONAL REPORTERS? [Table of Contents]
SUBSCRIPTIONS
& COMMENTS [Table
of Contents]
This Newsletter is prepared
by Tijs Creutzberg and Matthew Lucas.
Project manager is David
A. Wolfe.
