Workshop 5:
Regional Innovation Policies
Friday 9 June at 9.15-11.30
Chair: Sami Moisio
Developing Regional Policy towards Innovation Policy
Marja Häyrinen-Alestalo, Antti Pelkonen, Tuula Teräväinen (Research Group for Comparative Sociology, Helsinki Institute of Science and Technology Studies, Finland)
Currently innovation policy is hypothesised as having possibilities to develop into an integrated policy having generic tendencies that help to deal with expanding and complicated policy issues. Our studies, however, indicate that aside from limited integrative capacities in general innovation policy meets new problems in the regional level. The knowledge-based economy model is market-driven and therefore highly selective. It points to policy elaborations using a standard set of high tech performance. In Finland the aims of regional policy have radically changed from state-led compensations of regional disabilities and efforts of decentralization into new regionalism. It is based on the search for competitive innovations as local priorities. The process has favoured centralisation and uneven development among the regions. The Centre of Expertise Programme exemplifies the new regionalism by promoting local expertise in order to develop world-class know-how in selected high tech fields. The emphasis on regional competitiveness and differentiation has, however, created tensions in balancing the objectives of regional and innovation policies. In a middle-sized region such as Satakunta, the Programme has enhanced economic development and cooperation networks but the regional competences have not conformed to the general model of a knowledge-based economy. Also in relation to the governance in supranational, national and regional levels, tensions have emerged due to overlapping activities, lack of coordination and the ambiguous division of responsibilities between the state and local initiatives. Accordingly the controversies between regional and innovation policies pose pressures for a broader viewpoint in future considerations of regional dimension in innovation policy.
Innovating the Regional Innovation Process
A.J. (Guus) Berkhout, Patrick van der Duin (Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)
This paper describes the regional innovation regime by a ‘circle of change'. It links changes in scientific insights, changes in technological capabilities, changes in product design and manufacturing, and changes in markets. To this end, the model moves away from the traditional chain concept and represents a circle with four 'nodes of change', connected by four interacting ‘cycles of change’. Collectively, they may be seen as the regional arena of opportunity where innovations build on change.
The proposed model shows that regions must combine technological capability with market understanding. Actually, it is argued that a vision on emerging global markets is crucial for being successful. Such a vision requires leadership on a regional level.
SME Policy and Regional Innovation System in Japan
Hiroshi Teraoka(School of Business Innovation,Chukyo University, Japan)
As Japanese economy had become more globalized, public policy for small and medium-sized enterprises has been forced to shift to more international-context direction from domestic-driven policy implication. Necessity for SMEs to adapting to new situation has been strongly emphasized not only for promoting abroad production in Asia in particular but also for improving their competence by enhancing non-price competitiveness at home through R&D activities. The important point alongside this argument regarding new SME policy direction is how to reduce their risks in R&D activities through building “regional innovation system” as a kind of external economy for promoting the innovation at home.
Futures Research and Absorptive Capacity in Regional Innovation Systems
Tuomo Uotila (Helsinki University of Technology, Lahti Centre, Finland), Vesa Harmaakorpi (Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lahti Unit, Finland), Helinä Melkas (Helsinki University of Technology, Lahti Centre, Finland)
The present study focuses on two important dynamic capabilities in regional innovation systems: visionary capability and innovative capability. Visionary capability is based on the ability to acquire and assimilate future-oriented knowledge and innovative capability the ability to transform and exploit the acquired knowledge in the actual innovation processes. In the regional innovation system the innovation processes take often place in heterogeneous multi-actor innovation networks setting special demands for the absorptive capacity of the entire system. The present article sheds light on the aggregate process of generating and using foresight knowledge in regional innovation processes. Experiences gained by resource-based futures research and innovation session method in the Lahti Region in Finland is used as a case study.