Patrick Le Galès (TBC) Anders Malmberg

Transcription

1 Regional Economies in a Globalising World Enhancing Intellectual Capacity and Innovation Friday 21 November Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University Chair: Professor Kevin Morgan The project This project identifies key thinkers in contrasting regional economies and asks them to prepare 3-5,000 word essays on their experience in mobilising intellectual resources to promote innovative new approaches to economic and social development within their respective policy communities. What has worked in their context, what has disappointed, and what policy exchange can be realistically attempted? How best can regional economies engage with the forces of globalisation? The project builds on a report Competing with the World, published by the Institute in This surveyed regional economies across the world to see what initiatives might be transferable to Wales. Fifteen economic regions were identified and studied as having potential lessons, divided into two categories. The following eleven were examined for their general success: 1. Atlanta, Georgia, USA 2. Aukland, New Zealand 3. Cambridgeshire, UK 4. Cleveland, Ohio, USA 5. Rhones-Alpes 6. Emelia-Romagna, Italy 7. Ireland 8. Limburg, Belgium and Netherlands 9. Ostergotland, Sweden 10. Overjissel, Netherlands 11. Pais Vasco, Spain In addition, Darmstadt, Germany, and Oulu, Finland were studied because of the salience of University involvement in their economies. Quebec was examined because of its high levels of public investment, and Singapore was chosen because of changing attitudes to entrepreneurship and creativity. The most important lessons that emerged can be summed up as follows: High quality independent research and analysis should underpin a communal effort in which business plays an active part alongside government. Entrepreneurial universities dedicated to the region s economy should be promoted. Support for the indigenous fabric, especially networks of small businesses, should be given top priority. There are no quick fixes or magic formulae successful economic regeneration policies must be tailored to local conditions, and then pursued consistently over decades. 1

2 In themselves these four recommendations were unremarkable. What was most informative was that, invariably, the regional economies we studied were successful because they exhibited all four in combination. So the lesson was: unless you follow at least these four directions your regional economy is unlikely to reach its full potential. Looking back at the assumptions underlying the study, it is striking that climate change was hardly taken into account. While globalisation was taken as a given, its impact was not considered in detail. Yet, within a space of four years, globalisation and climate change have come to dominate economic development thinking across the world. It is time, therefore, to revisit our 2004 study to see how regional economies can most effectively adjust to, and take advantage of global pressures. It is argued for example, that smaller economies should have the ability to mobilise inherent advantages in adapting to world markets. They have short lines of communication, and small and potentially cohesive policy communities that should allow them to respond rapidly to changes in external conditions. Recent years have also seen a burgeoning of futures studies as societies of all sizes grapple with rapid change. We would like to discuss with the British Council the range of participants we should invite. However, we would suggest the following regional economists and economic geographers who have a world-wide reputation in promoting new thinking on regional economic development, globalisation, and intellectual capacity building. Each will be asked to examine the IWA s 2004 report and extend its analysis to absorb the globalisation and climate change debate that has developed over the last decade. How far can global policy tranfer enhance regional economic development, social cohesion, human rights and the engagement of civil society? in How far can moblising our intellectural resources give us an edge in address this question? Patrick Le Galès (TBC) is Research Professor and Professor of Politics and Sociology at Sciences Po Paris, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Centre de Recherche Politique de Sciences Po. Author of European cities, social conflict and governance (2002) and The changing governance of local economies in Europe (2004), he coordinates the Cities/metropolis/cosmopolis Research Unit at Sciences Po Paris. He has held previous research, teaching and visiting position at Sciences Po Rennes, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UCLA, University Milan Bicocca, SURF, the University of Salford, and was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the EUI Florence. Anders Malmberg is Professor of Economic Geography and Director of the Centre for Research on Innovation and Industrial Dynamics at Uppsala University. His research focuses on industrial dynamics and local and regional economic development, with an emphasis on the study of innovation and transformation processes in clusters and innovation systems. Between 1990 and 1994 he was the research co-ordinator of the European Science Foundation Scientific Programme on Regional and Urban Restructuring in Europe. He has 2

3 held visiting research positions at Durham University, UK and at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences. Currently he is Leader of the research programme on Clusters and Innovation systems in time and space, at the Centre for Research on Innovation and Industrial Dynamics. Other research projects include Creativity and Innovation in Cultural Industries. David Wolfe is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto in Mississauga. In 1997, he co-founded the Program on Globalisation and Regional Innovation Systems at the Centre for International Studies. PROGRIS was recently named as the node for one of five sub-networks of the new Innovation Systems Research Network in Canada. He recently completed a report on Government Support for E-business: Comparative Experiences for the Canadian E-business Opportunities Roundtable and the Electronic Commerce Task Force of Industry Canada. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (TBC), Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics, has a long track record of research in regional growth, regional innovation, and development policies. He is the author of The Dynamics of Regional Growth in Europe (1998), The European Union: Economy, Society, and Polity (2002) and of numerous research papers in scientific journals. He is currently engaged in Development strategies and economic growth in a changing world", a five-year project focusing on the impact of globalisation on regional economic development strategies across the world. Claire Nauwelaers (TBC) has been Senior Research Fellow at Maastricht University since Her main areas of research and expertise revolve around the analysis and policy advice on innovation systems and research, technology and innovation policy. She is working on policy development, analysis and evaluation in the areas of Research, Technology and Innovation, for the European Commission, national and regional authorities. She has undertaken an analysis of trans-border clusters between Germany, Luxembourg, France and Belgium. With professor Kevin Morgan, of Cardiff University, she has published Regional Innovation Strategies: The key challenge for Europe's less favoured regions Phil Cooke is University Research Professor in regional economic development, and founding director (1993) of the Centre for Advanced Studies, Cardiff University. He is also an executive of CESAGen, the UK research council centre in Cardiff on the Social and Economic Analysis of Genomics. His research interests lie in studies of Biotechnology, Regional Innovation Systems, Creativity, Knowledge Economies, Clusters and Networks. He has been a UK government advisor on innovation since 1999, and also advises the European Commission, the OECD, and the World Bank. He is Editor of 'European Planning Studies', a journal devoted to urban and regional governance, innovation and development issues. In 2004 he was 3

4 elected to the UK Academy of Social Sciences. In 2005 he was made Distinguished Research fellow at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and in 2006 awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Lund, Sweden. Henry Yeung (TBC) is Professor of Economic Geography at the National University of Singapore. My research interests cover theories and the geography of transnational corporations, Asian firms and their overseas operations and Chinese business networks in the Asia-Pacific region. he has conducted extensive research on Hong Kong firms in Southeast Asia, the regionalisation of Singaporean companies, and the emergence of leading Asian firms in the global economy. He is Editor of Environment and Planning, Economic Geography, Review of International Political Economy, and Asia- Pacific Editor of Global Networks. Among his many publications is Chinese Capitalism in a Global Era, Routledge, Dafna Schwartz is a senior lecturer in the Department of Business Administration at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Her research interests embrace regional economic and business development. She is a member of the Israel 2020 Project. Among her many publications she is coeditor of Creative Regions, Routledge, Maryann Feldman (TBC) is the Jeffery S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Professor of Business Economics at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Prior to joining Rotman, Dr. Feldman held the position of Policy Director for Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering and prior to that she was a research scientist at the Institute on Policy Studies at the University. Dr. Feldman is on the Advisory Panel for the U.S. National Science Foundation's Program on Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science and Technology. Her research and teaching interests focus on the areas of innovation, the commercialization of academic research and the factors that promote technological change and economic growth. A large part of Dr. Feldman's work concerns the geography of innovation investigating the reasons why innovation clusters spatially and the mechanisms that support and sustain industrial clusters. AnnaLee Saxenian (TBC) is Dean and Professor in the School of Information and professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. Her most recent book, The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in the Global Economy (Harvard University Press, 2006), explores how the "brain circulation" by immigrant engineers from Silicon Valley has transferred technology entrepreneurship to emerging regions in China, India, Taiwan, and Israel. Prior publications include Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (Harvard University Press, 1994), and Local and Global Networks of Immigrant Professionals in Silicon Valley (PPIC, 2002). 4

5 Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen is Professor of Geography at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her research interests are in high technology industry, labour markets, organizational dynamics, and international business. Her research encompasses the following topics: foreign direct investment in the United States, innovation and export strategies of small Canadian and US manufacturers, the dynamics of the biotechnology industry in the US, UK, Canada, and India, the internationalization of producer service firms, and the IT labour markets with a specific focus on Cybersecurity. She is affiliated to the National Centre for Geographic Information and Analysis. Fulong Wu Professor of East Asian Planning and Development and Director of the Urban China Research Centre in the School of City and Regional Planning at Cardiff University. He is the programme director of Urban China Research International Network funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and a member of the board of directors of Urban China Research Network, and the coordinator of a British Higher Education Link project with China. His main research specialities include East Asian urban studies, in particular Chinese cities, and the study of urban governance Fumi Kitagawa is an Assistant Professor at the University of Lund, Sweden, working on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Knowledge Creation Dynamics in Globalizing Learning Economies. Previously, she worked as Research Fellow at Department of Higher Education, National Institute for Educational Policy Research (NIER) in Japan, conducting a wide range of research on higher education policy issues. Between 2006 and 2007, Fumi was involved in two international peer review teams for the OECD project "Supporting the Contribution of HEIs to Regional Development" (Metropolitan City of Pusan in South Korea, and the Atlantic Canada region in Canada). In 2005, she held Jean Monnet Fellowship at European University Institute as part of the European Forum The role of universities in innovation systems whilst she was a lecturer at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. Her esearch interests include: the role of higher education in innovation systems, regionalisation of science and innovation, and multi-level governance of innovation. Her publications include Regionalisation of Science and Innovation Governance in Japan, in Regional Studies, Special Edition Regional Governance and Science Policy, The aim will be to publish essays from these contributors, together with an introduction provided by the IWA, in early In addition we should like to bring the authors together in a high level conference to discuss the findings in the late Autumn of The authors will revise their papers prior to publication in the wake of the conference. This undertaking will be organised in collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Studies at Cardiff University, with travelling and accomodation costs part-funded by the EU Commission s Network of Excellence 'Dynamics of Institutions and Markets in Europe' (DIME). 5