Ontario's Regional Economic Development and Innovation Newsletter



Issue #171                                                           May 15, 2008

  Studies & Publications: Announcements | Editor's Pick | Innovation Policy |Cities and Regions | Statistics and Indicators| Policy Digest | Events
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This newsletter is published by ONRIS at the Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, and sponsored by the Ministry of Research and Innovation. The views and ideas expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Ontario Government.

ANNOUNCEMENTS                                                          [Table of Contents]

Ontario Invests in Technology Start-Ups

he Ontario government is helping to bring to market the award-winning CPRGlove™ developed by a Burlington-based healthcare company. Atreo Medical Inc.’s CPRGlove™ interactively guides users on how to most effectively perform life-saving Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). The technology will improve the survival rates of the nearly 350,000 annual out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that occur within Canada and the United States. Ontario’s $500,000 investment in the company is one of two new grants awarded through the province’s Market Readiness Program, which helps innovative Ontario companies grow to the point where they can attract investment from other sources.


EDITOR'S PICK                                                             [Table of Contents]

Stuck in Neutral: Canada's Engagement in Global and Regional Supply Chains

Conference Board of Canada
This report takes an original look at how Canadian companies fit into other regions’ supply chains and how those regions fit into Canadian supply chains. Instead of conventional trade analysis that tends to assume two countries trade in final goods, this report examines Canada’s trade with other regions through the eyes of the buyer’s supply chain. This approach better aligns with today’s highly integrated regional and global production. The results show a scaling back of Canada’s involvement in global and regional supply chains in recent years, after a dramatic increase over the 1990s. However, stripping away Canada’s trade with its North American partners shows that Canadian companies have become more integrated—especially in recent years—in other regions’ supply chains. But integrated trade with those regions remains modest and represents important untapped potential. Businesses and governments need to take action.

INNOVATION & RELATED POLICY                                  [Table of Contents]

Innovation and the Productivity Problem - Any Solutions?

Donald G McFetridge, Institute for Research and Public Policy (IRPP)
While Canada remains a prosperous nation, its productivity growth record has been poor when compared to other developed economies. This study seeks to understand why and to see whether any potential solutions are available. It points to the business sector’s lack of innovation and entrepreneurial spirit as primary cause for Canada’s productivity lag. While the Canadian government has introduced multiple programs to stimulate innovation, the national innovation culture is still quite weak. The paper contends that new innovation policies should focus on supporting “market incentives for entrepreneurship” through reduced taxes and regulation. This effort would also entail support for “higher quality venture capital,” which in practice means ending subsidies for Canadian investors and opening up local markets to foreign venture investors. While critical of many Canadian government initiatives, the report does recommend continuation of efforts to fund technology commercialization from universities, to build university-business partnerships, and to enhance technology training opportunities across the education spectrum.

Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, Especially Within Non-Business Studies

European Commission, Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General
This expert report explores key issues regarding the teaching of entrepreneurship in higher education, identifies existing obstacles and proposes a range of solutions, taking into account the different levels of responsibility (public policy, institutions, educators and relevant stakeholders). The report focuses primarily on learning about entrepreneurship as part of non-business disciplines, in particular within technical and scientific faculties and universities.

CITIES, CLUSTERS & REGIONS                                          [Table of Contents]

The Role of Leadership in Promoting Regional Innovation Policies in 'Ordinary Regions'

NESTA
This report explores how effective leadership for regional innovation can contribute to promoting innovation in regions that have particular problems with their innovation systems. Although this question might seem abstract, it is in fact rooted in a very practically-oriented policy development process. From the 1980s, the European Commission, and in particular the Directorates General responsible for Enterprise, Research and Regional Development have wrestled with the issue of how to encourage firms in less successful regions of Europe to benefit from the Single Market by improving their innovation. This paper considers the nature of innovation to understand recent changes in the way in which territorial impacts on the innovation process have been understood. Successful regions have developed a networked capacity to bring public and private partners together to develop demand-side solutions to particular regional innovation problems. ‘Leadership’ has played a crucial role in these success stories, in mobilizing networks and ensuring that these networks evolve into structures which can improve policy development. This requires a consideration of the way that leadership is theorised. Although much business literature is rooted in ‘heroic’ versions of leadership in which single individuals produce broad impacts, in innovation studies, leadership has been seen as being much more of a team effort. However, it is clear that in the UK public policy context, leadership – which has undoubtedly become an important focus for policy – is imbued with a particular and perhaps simplistic reading of ‘leadership’. This raises particular problems for understanding how leadership can contribute to regional innovation.

Great Lakes/Northwest Economic Revitalization

National Employment Law Project
Economic Revitalization. Manufacturing Renewal. Shared Prosperity. These are the common challenges facing progressive leaders in the manufacturing heartland stretching from Western New York to Eastern Iowa. This webpage gathers resources addressing these challenges developed by  partners and guests concerned with building an economy that works for low-income and middle class families in this region and across the U.S.This webpage includes summit presentations, related presentations provided to us by other experts, and valuable links to resources that address the key questions facing economic policymakers today, namely how to keep and develop good jobs that will support middle class families.

STATISTICS & INDICATORS                                                 [Table of Contents]

Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity

Ewing-Marion Kauffman Foundation
According to the latest Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, 495,000 new businesses per month were started in 2007 with 0.30 percent of the adult population (or 300 out of 100,000 adults) involved in the startup process. This entrepreneurial activity rate is a slight increase over the 2006 rate of 0.29 percent. Other trends from the Kauffman Index include: The rates for immigrants (0.37 percent to 0.46 percent) and men (0.35 percent to 0.41 percent) rose significantly; the rate for women dropped (from 0.23 percent to 0.20 percent). The rate among Latinos increased (0.33 percent to 0.40 percent) more than any other major ethnic or racial group. The rate among youth—ages 20-34—increased, but still lag behind older age groups. The study also examines entrepreneurial activity by city, state and region. Startup activity increased in the Midwest and the West, but decreased in the Northeast. The entrepreneurial activity rate increased slightly in the South.


POLICY DIGEST                                                                  [Table of Contents]

Charting Maine's Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places

The Brookings Institution
This report concludes that for all of its challenges the state of Maine stands within reach of a new prosperity—if it takes bold action and focuses its limited resources on a few critical investments. In that vein, the study assesses the economic and development circumstances of the northernmost New England state and offers a fiscally defensible action plan for ushering in an era of sustainable, high-quality growth. Central to the plan is an argument that the state must invest in what matters—the state's outstanding quality of place and most promising industrial clusters—and do that by streamlining government in order to free up the necessary resources. This report identifies the following findings and provides a set of recommendations to support future prosperity:

Maine is changing in dramatic and surprising ways:

  • Maine's population is growing;
  • the previously resource-based economy is diversifying towards innovation and knowledge intesive industries;
  • the previously rural state is suburbanizing

The changes have entailed benefits and challenges:

  • Demographic change is raising overall education levels, but workers are still not prepared for tomorrow's jobs: In this regard, recent gains in in-migration and higher-education attainment do not change the fact that Maine’s aging population includes too few young workers and too few highly skilled or educated people. In the near term, these factors are producing both labor shortages in some areas and low pay for many as more of the best jobs require higher skill levels. Going forward, continuing shortcomings in the size and skill levels of Maine’s workforce could complicate efforts to upgrade the state’s economy and improve the livelihoods it provides to Maine workers.
  • Maine has clusters, but they are small: The continued progress of Maine’s traditional and emerging export sectors and clusters cannot obscure the fact that these industries lack critical mass and are not yet generating large volumes of jobs. Maine’s more traditional export industries—tourism, healthcare, non-store retailing, and finance and insurance—all slightly out-performed their national counterparts between 2000 and 2004 in terms of job creation. Moreover, this growth and growth in other innovation clusters like boat-building, advanced materials, and biotechnology is producing jobs that pay more than the state average. And yet, despite these gains, many of Maine’s most important industry sectors and clusters remain modest in size, populated by few companies, and sometimes very loosely organized.
  • Cities are becoming revitalized, but suburbanization is increasing costs and small towns are suffering: The state’s overall quickening growth has brought new population to many of the state’s traditional regional hubs— many of which were losing population in the 1990s. But widespread suburbanization and sprawl are driving up costs and may well be damaging the state’s top calling card—its scenic beauty, the feel of its towns, its quality of place.

There are state-level policy challenges:

  • Inconsistent economic development policies: Maine has had no shortage of thoughtful leaders and bold ideas on economic development over the years. However, the state has frequently failed to stick to and sustain its ideas, with the result that it has undercut the effectiveness of numerous intelligent but under- or un-funded initiatives
    that might have otherwise made a larger difference. In this respect, numerous state or quasi-public institutions intended to promote economic development remain small or under-funded, while other promising innovation- and development-finance programs and funds have been under-capitalized.
  • High cost government: On the spending side, Maine’s unusually high expenditures on a number of state-level administrative functions as well as on K–12 education are likely squeezing out necessary spending in other areas even as they contribute to high taxes. On the revenue side, meanwhile, Maine’s high state-local tax burdens and how they fall on various taxpayers may well be contributing to negative economic and land-use outcomes. High overall burdens, the second-highest
    property taxes in the nation, and the state’s low thresholds for its very high personal income tax top rate all may well be sending negative signals to workers, entrepreneurs, and retirees about the state as a place in which to live and do business.
  • Development barriers: On the one hand, Maine’s convoluted state and local construction rules combined with the absence of significant catalyzing investment serve to discourage development in older places and discourage the reuse of historic structures. Along these lines, Maine’s patchwork of differing local and state building-code regimes, the orientation of most codes toward new construction, and the variable quality of code interpretation virtually guarantee that most development veers away from the state’s traditional centers. On the other hand, Maine’s ineffective state and local planning system leaves most Maine localities unable to manage growth and vulnerable to region-scaled sprawl. In this respect, the combination of Maine’s intensely localistic planning system and the absence of sufficient support and incentives for municipal and regional planning efforts has left most Maine towns and regions susceptible to sprawl that further weakens town centers and degrades rural landscapes

Strategies going forward:

  • Invest in a place-based, innovation focused economy: To foster economic growth, Maine should adopt a twopronged
    investment strategy focused both on protecting and enhancing the state’s quality of place and spurring business innovation by supporting the emergence of new ideas and vibrant industrial clusters. Establish a $190-million Maine Quality Places Fund to promote the revitalization of Maine’s towns and cities; augment land and farm conservation; protect traditional uses of and access to Maine forests, farms, and lakes; and promote high-quality tourism and outdoor recreation given their importance to Maine’s economic well-being. The fund could be financed as a revenue bond supported by a 3-percent hike in the state’s lodging tax, which is primarily paid by Maine visitors. Also, the state could upport a $200-million Maine Innovation Jobs Fund, $180 million of which should support job-creating R&D in promising scientific and technical disciplines, while another $20 million goes to a new Maine Cluster Development Fund to foster the business-led partnerships that catalyze cluster-based job creation through collaborative
    work on key challenges like workforce development and marketing.
  • Trim government to invest in Maine’s economy and finance tax reduction: To redirect scarce resources toward the investments it needs to make, Maine should seek cost savings in state and local government that can be applied either to financing the Maine Innovation Jobs Fund and the Cluster Development Fund or tax reduction. Maine should adopt a high-level business plan that demands cost-cutting as well as determined investment.
  • Support the revitalization of Maine’s towns and cities while channeling growth: Maine needs to tend to how its rules and policies shape communities. To accomplish this, the state should support its investments in place-making by making development easier in its traditional towns and cities and fostering improved local and regional planning.

In the end, this report affirms Mainers’ abiding intuition that economic success and quality places matter equally and can be fostered by effective government. Along those lines, “Charting Maine’s Future” concludes that a more prosperous, more sustainable, and ultimately more equitable future can be Maine’s if it sets gridlock aside and moves decisively to invest in its economy and quality places, while taking tough steps to trim government and streamline its land-use and development rules.

EVENTS                                                                               [Table of Contents]


9th International Digital Government Research Conference: Partnerships for Public Innovation

Montreal, 18-21 May, 2008
The 9th annual international conference is a forum for presentation and discussion of interdisciplinary digital government research and practice and its applications in diverse domains. The conference is presented by the Digital Government Society of North America (DGSNA), with major support from the US National Science Foundation. The conference theme, Partnerships for Public Innovation, focuses on information-intensive innovations in the public sector that involve linkages among government, universities, NGOs, and businesses. This theme emphasizes the importance of sharing practical issues, policy perspectives, research insights, and expert advice, in order to reach higher levels of performance in diverse public enterprises.

Discovery 2008 Conference: Challenging the Formulas for Commercial Success

Toronto, 12-14 May, 2008
Experience the evolution of Discovery with all-new events and features. Try your business pitch on some of Canada's leading venture capitalists, angel investors and business people at The Elevator Pitch. Tackle real-world problems alongside your innovative peers at the Ontario Science Centre Innovation Challenge. Take part in Sector Forums to engage in the latest issues around Ontario's critical sectors such as Cleantech, Energy, Life Sciences, Digital Media and Manufacturing. Rethink today's models of achieving success at our keynote sessions, featuring some of the world's leading business authors and thinkers. Make vital connections at our expanded networking environment. It's the new you can't afford to miss.

From Entrepreneur to Titan: Can Canadian Entrepreneurs Grow Technology Start-Ups into Domestic Multinationals?

Toronto, 20-21 May, 2008
Does Canada have what it takes to grow domestic multinationals in knowledge-based industry sectors such as ICT, biotech and cleantech? What is the nature of Canada’s entrepreneurial culture? Are Canadian entrepreneurs able or willing to grow multinational firms? Does Canada have the executive talent to run tech multinationals from a Canadian base? Is such behaviour encouraged and recognized positively in Canada? Do we train our young people for these kinds of entrepreneurial and executive roles? Leading tech entrepreneurs and executives in Canada, the U.S. and abroad share their own experiences and perceptions on Canada’s entrepreneurial culture, and explore ways to improve Canada’s performance in knowledge-based commerce.

STI Indicators for Policy: Addressing New Demands from Stakeholders

Oslo, Norway, 28-30 May, 2008
The recent years have witnessed an extraordinary diversification of the demands for Science and Technology Indicators for policymaking and strategic decision of the actors involved in S&T policies. New demands have emerged as a consequence of the growing complexity of innovation systems at the regional, national and international level and of the needs of new indicators types to characterize the position and the linkages of individual actors (so-called positioning indicators). Whole new fields of indicators have emerged, like collaboration indicators, web indicators, indicators on human resources and mobility, while even in classical domains like input measurement existing indicators are no longer adequate to the needs of policy. The conference aims to provide a locus both for general methodological discussion concerning new indicators, their use in policymaking and the requirements for their production, and for presenting new developments in indicators for specific domains and policy issues, concerning their design, methodology, experimental development and application to policy analysis and decision-making.

Photonics North 2008: Closing the Gap Between Theory, Development and Application

Montreal, 2-4 June, 2008
The Photonics North event is thus a unique opportunity to visit a beautiful city, participate in an outstanding international event and meet with representatives from numerous innovative photonics companies.

IRE Conference: Innovation Governance - Enhancing Interaction in the Regional Innovation System

Rennes, France, 5-6 June, 2008
In today’s world, where knowledge is available from a variety of sources, neither companies nor regions can afford to rely exclusively on their own resources for innovation. They need to interact with other people and organizations and draw on other fields of expertise to exploit their full innovation potential. Many regions have discovered that being a host to useful resources such as companies, research institutes and innovation support organisations is not enough – a climate with networking, exchange and trust between the various actors is necessary. A key challenge for innovation policy governance in European regions is therefore to foster such a climate of open attitudes and cooperation within regional innovation systems – and beyond, since useful contacts and networks do not stop at the geographical borders of a region. Attempts to strengthen innovative clusters and put in place useful mechanisms for knowledge transfer between the research and business sectors are often essential ingredients in the efforts to promote effective regional innovation systems. The aim of this conference is to exchange experience on ways to intensify the interaction between players in regional innovation systems. It will build on outcomes from three Working Groups bringing together IRE member regions with a focus on regional innovation systems, clusters as innovation drivers, and knowledge transfer between research organizations and enterprises. IRE members will share their practical experiences, and group discussions will allow participants to actively exchange opinions about the themes of their interest.

The Summit for American Prosperity: Washington and Metro Areas Working Together

Washington, DC, 12 June, 2008
The Summit program is based on a simple premise: The United States is now fully a metropolitan nation. The largest 100 Metropolitan areas are home to 65 percent of the U.S. population, 68 percent of the nation’s jobs and account for 75 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. These metro areas are our hubs of research and innovation, our centers of human capital, and our gateways of trade and immigration. American competitiveness depends on the health and vitality of our metropolitan areas. The Summit will introduce a new perspective on how to engage the Federal government in a true partnership in support of our MetroNation.

Evidence-Based Policy Making: International Best Practices in Connecting Science and Policy

Amsterdam, Netherlands, 19-20 June, 2008
The aim of this conference is to connect a broad range of views, internationally as well as transdisciplinary on 'Evidence Based Policy Making'. Seasoned policy makers and experienced researchers from all over the world will give an insight into their own experiences, providing ample examples and concrete tools for evidence based policy making.

Advancing Small Business and Entrepreneurship: From Research to Results

Halifax, 22-25 June, 2008
Please join researchers, educators, policy makers and business service providers from around the world at the 53rd International Council for Small Business (ICSB) World Conference. The theme of the conference is "Advancing Small Business and Entrepreneurship: From Research to Results". A key aim of the conference is to bridge the gap between research and action.

Globelics Conference 2008: New Insights for Understanding Innovation and Competence Building for Sustainable Development and Social Justice

Mexico City, 22-24 September, 2008
GLOBELICS (Global Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation, and Competence Building Systems) is an international network of scholars who apply the concept of "learning, innovation, and competence building system" (LICS) as their framework and are dedicated to the strengthening of LICS in developing countries, emerging economies and societies in transition. The research aims at locating unique systemic features as well as generic good practices to enlighten policy making relating to innovation, competence building, international competitiveness, regional development, labor market and human capital development. In an increasingly global and knowledge-based competition, management strategies need to be based upon an understanding of these framework conditions and the public policies which seek to regulate the environment. For the sixth conference to be held in Mexico City papers that contribute to the understanding of 'Styles' or modes of Development (or Political Economy of Development): paradigms of public policies, conflicts, trade-offs and choices among alternative public policies will be welcome.

Reconsidering the Regional Knowledge Economy: Theoretical, Empirical Policy Insights from Diverse Research Approaches

Newcastle, UK, 4-5 September, 2008
It is generally acknowledged that regional economic success in Europe is dependent on an orientation towards a knowledge-based economy, typified either by high value added, creative and science-based industry, or a focus on advanced business services. For those regions lacking such advantages the emphasis of policy has been placed on developing new clusters of knowledge-based industries through a variety of measures including networking activities, university-based initiatives and support for new start-ups. A key problem though has been the absence of a clear understanding of what would constitute progress towards a knowledge-based economy, never mind what should be the most appropriate policies. One particular problem is the lack of consensus between quantitative and qualitative researchers on how to assess the state of the knowledge base and on the nature of the policy objectives. Through the inclusion of varieties of approaches to exploring the regional knowledge economy this seminar will offer opportunities to draw comparisons between the findings of various research strategies. In so doing, the seminar will stimulate a dialogue within which new developments may be initiated to bridge the various research communities and thereby offer new insights into the role of knowledge in regional economic development and subsequent policy implications.

PRIME International Conference 2008

Mexico City, 24-26 September, 2008
Both the Latin American and European countries recognize that innovation and knowledge are central to the future growth and vitality of their economies and the improvement of quality of life of their citizens. To be successful policies aimed at encouraging research and innovation should recognize the importance of specific institutional arrangements and adaptation to the different sectors and knowledge fields. The Europe-Latin America Conference on Science and Innovation Policy will explore the research/knowledge base, the factual and the normative principles that inform those policies, taking account of the current dynamic international context, promoting mutual learning between the communities of researchers, analysts, R&D managers and policy makers. The aim of the conference is: to stimulate the exchange of experiences about science, technology and innovation policies in Latin America and European countries to promote mutual learning, improve the quality of the research in the field, enhance the impact of the research in the policy making and foster the diffusion of the best practices amongst countries of Europe and Latin America, considering an adequate balance between convergence and diversity. 

GLOBELICS International Conference 2008

Mexico City, 24-26 September, 2008
For the sixth conference to be held in Mexico City papers that contribute to the understanding of 'Styles' or modes of Development (or Political Economy of  Development): paradigms of public policies, conflicts, trade-offs and choices among alternative public policies will be welcome. The conference will be organized around the following themes on the following issues:  Innovation, economic development and inequality (Education, Health, Employment, Migration, Gender Equity, Income Distribution). The conditions for developing sustainable systems of innovation. Biofuel, energy systems, water supply, transport, tourism and sustainable development. The role of new ‘horizontal technologies’ (ICTs and biotechnologies). Innovation in indigenous knowledge systems and in traditional sectors (e.g. agriculture, handcraft, clothing, eco-tourism, etc.). Factors affecting differences in economic growth rates: convergence vs divergence in productivity and welfare standards. Patterns of sectoral catching-up. Globalization, autonomy/openness and development. The links between microeconomic learning and macroeconomic policies. Forces inducing learning and the expansion of domestic technological capabilities. Innovation, SME and local development. Factors of attractiveness and embeddedness of the MNCs in local/regional/national systems. Privatization of knowledge, Intellectual Property Right (IPR) and development. International cooperation and national innovation policies to face global challenges (poverty, diseases, natural disasters).

Regional Comparative Advantage and Knowledge-Based Entrepreneurship

Amsterdam, Netherlands, 9-10 October, 2008
The organizers invite submissions for empirical and theoretical papers on the financing of knowledge-based entrepreneurial firms, on the influence of venture capital on firms’ ability to translate technological advances into successful products, and on the contribution of knowledge-based entrepreneurship to regional dynamics.

The 3rd International Seville Conference on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis: Impacts and Implications for Policy and Decision Making

Seville, Spain, 16-17 October, 2008
Following the success of 2004 and 2006 events, the International Seville Conference on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA) has become a major occasion for FTA experts, practitioners and decision-makers to bring their ideas and knowledge together in a highly interactive environment. As with previous FTA events, the 2008 Conference places emphasis on diversity of views by attracting participants from a wide geographical base. Academics, practitioners as well as public and private sector decision makers from Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America, Africa and Australasia are invited to broaden the network and to increase understanding of advances in the field of FTA.

The 5th International Conference on Innovation and Management (ICIM2008)

Maastricht, Netherlands, 10-11 December, 2008
Organized by UNU-MERIT (The Netherlands) and supported by Wuhan University of Technology (China) and Yamaguchi University (Japan), This conference will bring together academics, practitioners and other professionals involved in the filed of innovation and management. The conference format includes plenary and parallel sessions with both academic and practitioner presentations and workshops. In addition, the conference will provide networking opportunities together with a taste of local culture.

>SUBSCRIPTIONS & COMMENTS                                                 [Table of Contents]

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This newsletter is prepared by Jen Nelles.
Project manager is David A. Wolfe.

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