Multinational R&D labs, here or there?

R&D labs of large corporations, together with academic institutions, tend to be the most important seeds when you want to establish an innovation cluster, aka ecosystem. However, why such R&D labs are located here or there? How can you attract them? Local and national level policy makers can now have a clue.

In fact, the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR) of the U.S. National Academies, commissioned a survey to find out the factors influencing the locations of R&D facilities, to base policy discussions upon a structured set of data rather than anecdote and case studies. Over 200 multinational companies, across 15 industries, were then approached. Respondents to the survey were high-level R&D personnel involved with R&D location decisions, being asked to avoid general and their own perceptions. Moreover, when asking about location, questions were in terms of employees rather than mere money investment. Finally, respondents were instructed to pick the site most central to their firm’s R&D strategy, as a reference to their answers.

How to build innovation clusters in Europe, Part II

Science|Business is an independent news and events service being focused on R&D investment and policy in Europe. To encourage public dialogue about innovation policies in Europe, it created together with Microsoft Corp. in 2007 a panel of leaders in industry, academia and policy: The Science|Business Innovation Board. Over the 2008, it had been meeting to find the answers how Europe can create high-tech clusters capable of challenging those of the USA.

The conclusions of this event were:

• a review of leading clusters,
• a manifesto for action and
• a proposal: Special Innovation Zones for Europe or SIZEs.

After reporting the cluster review in Part I of this topic, click here for the details, I am going to discuss the manifesto and the SIZEs proposal and end with my own comments, as usual.

How to build innovation clusters in Europe, Part I

After taking a look at how USA fosters Innovation at regional level, click this for more details, I’ll be here reporting on an European study being led by Science|Business and supported by Microsoft Corp. investigating on how Europe can challenge USA in terms of innovation generation.

Science|Business is an independent news and events service being focused on R&D investment and policy in Europe. To encourage public dialogue about innovation policies in Europe, it created together with Microsoft Corp. in 2007 a panel of leaders in industry, academia and policy: The Science|Business Innovation Board. Over the 2008, it had been meeting to find the answers how Europe can create high-tech clusters challenging those of the USA.

The conclusions of these events were:

1. a review of leading clusters,
2. a manifesto for action and
3. a proposal, Special Innovation Zones for Europe or SIZEs.

I’ll being then review the 3 points and close with my own takeaways in 2 separated parts. Part I will deal with the cluster review and Part II with the manifesto and the so-called SIZEs.

Let’s start with Part I.