During the 1970s, Canada routinely topped the U.S. in terms of real growth in gross domestic product per capita. As recently as 1990, Canada enjoyed the fourth highest standard of living in the world but slipped to seventh by 1999.

The Australian Government has enacted new rules to attract international private equity investment in the country’s venture capital community. The rules introduce tax concessions for international investors, including university endowment funds and venture capital fund-to-fund vehicles. The rules will treat these investors in the same way as pension funds, exempting them from capital gains tax on their Australian investments.

The European Commission's 2001 European Innovation Scoreboard, characterizing the strengths and weaknesses in the capacity for innovation of the European Union (EU) and its member states, shows the EU continues to lag behind the U.S. and Japan. 

A Rhode Island Economic Strategy: 10 Ways to Succeed Without Losing Our Soul recently was released by the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council. The report outlines 10 economic development initiatives through four themes centered on places, people, clusters and connections. 

Whether it's called clusters or localization economies, the aggregation of firms in the same or closely related industries has captured the attention of many state and local tech-based economic development efforts. Understanding the phenomenon and formulating effective public policy to encourage or support clustering presents challenges for practitioners and researchers alike. 

Imagine President Bush using his entire State of the Union Address to present a $23 billion five-year strategy to encourage research, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the country. While it has not received much press in the United States, the equivalent happened when Australian Prime Minister John Howard gave his annual Federation Address on January 29.

By creating Ontario’s Regional Innovation Networks (ORIN) three years ago, the provincial government experimented with how to establish customized systems-specific, but network-integrated approaches to strengthening and supporting regional innovation.

Earlier this month, the Canadian Minister of Industry announced the establishment of 11 new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs) to pursue multidisciplinary work in the areas of environmental science, natural resources and energy, health and life sciences, and information and communication technologies. This $163 million investment joins a $105 million investment last year that created seven other CECRs across Canada.

 

Transforming as many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as possible into globally competitive firms is a challenge, as most TBED practitioners know. The complexity of combining all of Europe into a single market makes the work even more daunting.

 

To simplify the process for SMEs in more than 40 countries, the European Commission recently launched a consolidated Enterprise Europe Network. The network consolidates the older Euro Info Centres and the Innovation Relay Centres.

 

Venture capitalists invested almost $2.5 billion in China in 2007, according to a new report from Dow Jones VentureSource. That figure is a 5 percent increase over the 2006, and the highest since 2001, despite a decrease in the number of deals. Though investment is not growing quite as quickly as it is in the U.S., where venture investment rose by 8 percent last year, China is becoming a key global market for venture investment.

 

Using the state’s regional advantage, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC) wants to create high-wage jobs in targeted industry sectors and establish new equity and financing programs that provide growth capital to sustain the ventures, the agency announced last week.

 

The following overview is a synopsis of selected recent announcements from research parks across the nation, including new tenants, groundbreakings and tools for financing start-up companies.

                       

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).

Lyne Bouchard is the president and CEO of TechnoMontréal, a new umbrella organization for the city's information and communications technology cluster.