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SSTI Digest
Singapore Government, Private Industries Investing in Innovation
Three major announcements were made in Singapore last month focusing on R&D of new technologies and educating the workforce to produce specialized graduates in upcoming fields.
Development plans for Asia’s first zero-energy building (ZEB) were released by the Parliamentary Secretary for National Development. The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) will retrofit an existing building that will both house classrooms and offices and serve as a testbed for green technology research. Slated for completion in 2009, the ZEB is expected to be 60 percent more energy efficient than an average commercial building. The building will create a highly efficient complex that produces as much energy as it consumes from renewable resources.
The Clustering of Technology-based Economic Development Organizations
The theory of spatial clustering has been very popular in the TBED field for many years, as researchers attempt to explain the transformation of places like Silicon Valley and the reasons various locales are economically competitive. Practitioners have utilized the theory as a method to describe their own state and regional economies and to support the development of specific industries. As an industry cluster grows, additional benefits of agglomeration are realized.
These benefits include the creation of a localized skilled pool of labor, saving funds from sharing infrastructure and reduced costs of transactions, and knowledge spillovers which create more rapid sharing of information across an industry. The geographic reach of clusters, a subject still under investigation by the research community, sometimes varies by size depending who is using the term. In some studies, clusters are at the state level, while others cluster studies are limited to the regional or even neighborhood level.
Toronto Regional Innovation Gauge Released along with Other Competitiveness Reports
A handful of competitiveness reports have been released in the past two weeks, each comparing various geographic locations and incorporating a range of innovation metrics. Perhaps the publication garnering the most international press has been The Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008 by the World Economic Forum. Produced since 1979, this year’s version of the Report includes the Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, which incorporates 12 “pillars of competitiveness” consisting of roughly 120 variables to rank 131 countries. These pillars range from Infrastructure and Macroeconomic Stability to more advanced groupings such as Technological Readiness and Innovation.
People
John Wilkinson was promoted to minister of research and innovation in the Ontario cabinet.
Canada Considers Privatizing Management of Some Federal Labs
Canada’s Treasury Board recently announced the creation of an independent panel of experts to provide advice on transferring management of federal non-regulatory laboratories into private or other non-government hands. The four individuals comprising the panel, each with extensive experience and leadership in Canada's science and technology community, will consider different management options for the Canadian systems of federal research labs.
Many of the largest nonregulatory and non-life science-related federal laboratories in the U.S. are managed by private companies through competitive selection processes. Others are co-located and run by academic institutions. The panel may consider privatization or quasi-privatization of life science-related labs that, in the case of the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Agriculture, remain government-operated.
The Canadian panel will focus on four key objectives:
People & TBED Organizations
The creation of the Canadian Association of University Research Parks was announced earlier this month. AURP Canada will represent 25 Canadian science, technology and research parks and will be a chapter of the Association of University Research Parks (AURP). Eileen Walker has been appointed AURP's new executive director.
India’s Government to Support 100 Incubators in Emerging Industries
The India Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises announced last week a plan to provide funding to 50 universities and training institutions for the creation of up to 100 enterprise incubators within innovative fields.
While the details have yet to be released, the Ministry plans to provide funding to 50 universities to create up to 100 incubators that will host approximately 1,000 micro and small enterprises over five years. The government will provide grants of Rs. 5 lakh per incubator - about $62,000 USD - to help support and promote emerging industries, including biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.
Last year, the Parliament enacted The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act of 2006, calling for the “promotion and development and enhancing the competitiveness of micro, small and medium enterprises.”
More information about the Act is available at: http://ssi.nic.in/MSME%20Development%20Gazette.htm
People & TBED Organizations
Canada's 17 research parks have agreed to join forces, creating a formal association.
Canada Releases New National Science and Technology Strategy
As the development of a nation's science and technology capacity becomes a critical component for economies around the globe, it is becoming even more critical for countries to implement strategies that will enable future competitiveness. This is particularly true for the world's leading economies, which is why, for example, the European Commission increased the resources invested toward research and innovation (see May 2, 2005 and Oct. 22, 2006 issues of the Digest.)
Recent Research: Why Do Manufacturing Firms Choose to Collaborate on Innovative Projects?
Manufacturing firms come in all shapes and sizes. Little ones. Big ones. Ones that need more labor from their employees to assemble components. Ones that need more R&D from their employees to design products.
And, for a variety of reasons, many manufacturing firms decide to collaborate with other entities in order to develop new and improved products. A recent discussion paper from the Center for European Economic Research sheds new light on the motives of these collaborative firms. In Motives for Co-operation: Evidence from the Canadian Survey of Innovation, Tobias Schmidt develops a typology of these firms, differentiated by their reasons to engage in collaboration.
People
Lyne Bouchard is the president and CEO of TechnoMontréal, a new umbrella organization for the city's information and communications technology cluster.
Canada Launches 5-year, $900M Aerospace and Defense Initiative
To promote excellence and accelerate innovation in the nation's aerospace, defence, security and space industries, Canada earlier this month launched the Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative (SADI) -- a repayable contribution program being administered by Industry Canada's Industrial Technologies Office (ITO).
Canadian aerospace, defence, security and space industries are knowledge-intensive and major contributors to Canada's economy. The aerospace sector, alone, had sales of $21.8 billion and exports of $18.5 billion and employed 75,000 highly skilled-and-paid Canadians in 2005. SADI is expected to invest nearly $900 million over the next five years, with funding to reach up to $225 million per year, in support of these industries.