Innovative Flanders Innovation Policies for the 21st Century: Report of a Symposium (2008) / Chapter Skim
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I INTRODUCTION & Innovative Flanders: Innovation Policies for the Twenty-first Century
I INTRODUCTION & Innovative Flanders: Innovation Policies for the Twenty-first Century
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I Introduction
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As a part of this effort, the committee identified Flanders, a region of Belgium with substantial autonomy, which is recognized for its comprehensive approach to innovation. Based on initial meetings in Washington and Brussels, and with the endorsement of Flanders Vice Minister-President Fientje Moerman, it was agreed to organize a conference that would review regional innovation policies in the context of the policies and programs of the Flanders government, and their interaction with those of the European Union. This chapter highlights the main points of this conference.
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Mary Good, University of Arkansas at Little Rock that public-private partnerships play in advancing American competitiveness. The chapter then turns to review the initiatives taken by the Flanders government to reinforce its position further as a global center of research and innovation.
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. Recognizing the need to secure its peoples' future prosperity in a rapidly chang ing and competitive global environment, the Flanders government decided to strengthen its own high-technology base, and has since implemented a broad range of programs to enhance its innovation capacity -- the focus of this volume.
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As Mark Myers of the University of Pennsylvania noted in his conference remarks, large firms no longer invest in in-house scientific research as they once did, drawing instead on needed technologies through investment, partnerships, and acquisitions of small innovative firms. Production and sales are similarly fragmented, based on worldwide supply chains and a worldwide customer base.
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China, most notably, combines the advantages of high-skill and low-wage knowledge workers with substantial state and foreign investments backed by a strong sense of national purpose in acquiring new capabilities and participating in roduct markets based on advanced technologies. p One element of this strategy focuses on attracting and developing hight echnology industries to the Mainland. As Alan Wolff of Dewey Ballantine LLP noted at the conference, China's leaders see the acquisition of technological capabilities and control of national market as a means of maintaining national autonomy and generating political and military strength.
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Howell, "New Paradigms for Partnerships: China Grows a Semiconductor Industry," in National Research Council, Innovation Policies for the 21st Century, Charles W Wessner, ed., Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2007.
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The authors note that public educational spending per full-time equivalent student has declined at public institutions relative to private institutions, from about 70 percent in 1977 to about 58 percent in 1996. Since roughly three-quarters of college students are enrolled at public institutions, they note that any decline in the quality of the nation's public universities could have troubling implications.
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industry. The SEMATECH Research Consortium In the 1980s, American semiconductor industry leaders, facing growing competition from Japan, became concerned that they needed to improve manufacturing quality and resolved to find a way to improve the situation collec
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, a microelectronics research facility on the outskirts of Leuven in Flanders. Today, SEMATECH continues to play a central role in developing the nanotechnologies necessary to move semiconductor research beyond CMOS and into the future.15 In his conference presentation, Kenneth Flamm of the University of Texas said that enhanced research collaboration, made possible by SEMATECH, helped to accelerate the rate of innovation in semiconductor technology and contributed to a rapid decline in the price of semiconductors.16 The development of a semiconductor technology roadmap in particular helped "coordinate the complex process of technology development to a point where products could all come on 12See Jeffrey T
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In turn, the industry's continued dynamism and growth is linked to a rise in the long-term growth trajectory of the United States.18 The Role of Innovation Awards As in the case of SEMATECH, innovation award programs were introduced in the 1980s to address concerns about the international competitiveness of the United States. Drawing on a growing body of evidence that small businesses were assuming an increasingly important role in both innovation and job creation, David Birch, a pioneer in entrepreneurship and small business research, and o thers, suggested that national policies should promote and build on the competitive strength offered by small businesses.19 The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
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Responding to the challenges of fostering regional growth and employment in an increasingly competitive global economy, leading American states have developed programs to grow companies as well as attract the talent and resources necessary to develop leading-edge technologies. 23 These state-based initiatives have a broad range of goals and increasingly include sig 21With regard to the certification effect, see Joshua Lerner, "Public Venture Capital," in National Research Council, The Small Business Innovation Program: Challenges and Opportunities, Charles W
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Goodall described TxAN as a statewide partnership for building innovative, virtual nanoelectronics capability "that leverages world-class researchers and R&D infrastructure and drives regional commercialization of technology." He described TxAN's new training paradigm, which includes a $4 million nanoelectronics development initiative to support 160 internships in advanced technology, a $3 million Nanoelectronics Research Initiative Center to provide university research in innovative ideas, and the Nanoelectronics Infrastructure Network that will link SEMATECH and TxAN with Texas universities in a $500 million collaborative effort.24 In addition to reinforcing policy successes at the state and federal levels, the United States can also learn from new policy initiatives under way around the world. As we see next, the innovation challenges facing Flanders and the policies adopted by the Flemish government to enhance competitiveness are directly relevant to the United States, just as U.S.
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As Bart van Looy of the Faculty of Economics and Applied Economics at the Flemish Policy Research Centre for R&D Statistics (SOOS) explained at the conference, the time lag between investment and payoff poses a political liability.26 Many people in Flanders expect the government to use its resources to create jobs directly and quickly, rather than to take the long and unfamiliar road of investing in R&D.
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The welfare and well-being of the Flemish people depend on this." Providing Effective Political Leadership The Flanders government is playing a leading role in developing policies to drive the future growth of its economy. Its leadership takes a sustained and 28Mr.
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Moerman offered a succinct description of Flanders' innovation strategy, which includes: • Generous funding from the Flemish government and EU; • Steady public encouragement and policy attention; • Intermediary institutions, including public-private partnerships; • State schemes to compensate for weaknesses in market mechanisms. An important element of the innovation policy is an extensive publicity and public awareness campaign.
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; • Four strategic research centers (for microelectronics, biotechnology, energy/environment, and broadband technology)
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As long ago as 1972, the Flemish government allowed professors to reinvest their earnings from their inventions to create a more entrepreneurial climate in universities.33 In 1991, the Flemish Innovation Agency (IWT) was established as a "onestop shop for innovation," offering direct financing for technology-related R&D and coordinating other innovation efforts of the Flemish government.
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Moerman noted that a second continuing policy challenge is to broaden the concept of innovation to include its non-technological aspects, including regulations, standards, training and education, patent and copyright issues, tax and economic policies, and labor market organizations. As noted in the Vervliet report, "innovation policy will be on the agenda of the Flemish Government as a whole."35 Mrs.
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Flanders' Strategic Research Initiatives As Peter Spyns noted in his conference presentation, new firms in Flanders have lacked mechanisms for accessing knowledge developed in the universities. A large strategic research program, budgeted at €232 million for 2006, addresses this impasse by funding more basic research that generates knowledge for industry, the non-profit sector, and government and to strengthen research that is relevant to policy.
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Recognized as a world-class microelectronics research center, IMEC strives to be a "worldwide center of excellence." As Anton de Proft, IMEC's Chairman, noted at the conference, it is "the world's largest industry commitment to semiconductor research in partnership -- even though Belgians are hesitant to say they're the biggest anything." IMEC emphasizes pre-competitive research and attempts to address the "innovation paradox" by bringing researchers from academia and industry together under the same roof. This provides focus for university researchers and basic solutions for industrial partners.
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Flemish Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) A second research institute that shows every sign of becoming another IMEC is Flanders' biotechnology facility.
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A fifth startup, SoluCel, is a small company in Finland, and during the Leuven conference a sixth spin-off was announced, ActoGeniX, which uses a bacterium as a living drug delivery tool. To date, these startups employ more than 280 people and represent more than €220 million in venture capital.
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This new center, opened in 2004, is a dispersed "virtual" center that focuses the missions of 13 existing research groups with the goal of becoming Flanders' fourth Strategic Research Initiative. It was founded on the premise that Flanders needs to be a leader in information and communications technology (ICT)
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"Borders are a thing of the past in terms of scientific collaboration." Funding for Research with an Economic Focus This last category of funding from the Flanders government goes to companies, research institutes or universities, and individuals who seem likely to promote "greater technological innovation in Flemish companies." They are designed to advance the goals of the Flanders government by: • Creating conditions that increase technological innovation in companies; • Creating conditions to achieve greater cooperation between academia and companies, and between companies themselves; • Promoting a climate of innovation. University Interface Services The goal of this program, according to Mrs.
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for Cooperative Innovation Networks.b Interuniversity The IMEC mission is "To The 2005 budget of IMEC was Micro-Electronics perform R&D, ahead of approximately €235 million, about half Centers (IMEC) industrial needs by 3-10 of which came in the form of revenues years, in microelectronics, from contracts with international nanotechnology, design industry; the remainder came from methods and technologies Flemish industry, the Government of for ICT systems." Flanders, the European Commission, and several smaller organizations.c The Flemish VIB is a non-profit Total income of €62 million in 2006, Interuniversity scientific research with the Flanders government funding Institute for institute.
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program supports collective research, technological services, projects that simulate innovation for particular issues, and activities to stimulate subregional innovation. For 2006, the budget of the program was estimated at €160 million.
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Debackere, is a desire to be part of a strong research environment where they can compete and collaborate with the best of their colleagues. In order to promote a strong collaborative research environment, the university lets the faculty reinvest the income in infrastructure, equipment, and postdoctoral scholars.
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The people of Flanders assign a more prominent role to government, take a cautious view of risk-taking, and experience relatively little venture capital activity. Even so, the Flemish government has found that the process of innova 42See presentation by Bart Van Looy in the Proceedings chapter of this volume.
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He emphasized the importance of support ing local science spin-offs and entrepreneurs, for which Flanders has created spe cific policies. Flanders has also strengthened innovation by linking public research institutions, teachers, and local SMEs; embedding large multinational corporations in the public research infrastructure; and sponsoring public information projects to explain innovation.
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Innovation policies and the resources devoted to them often suffer from a "tyranny of small scale." Even well-conceived programs cannot make a meaningful contribution to innovation performance unless the program and resources allocated are adequate to the task. Taking into consideration these caveats, policymakers in the United States can find instructive lessons in the broad goals, multiple instruments, significant funding, sustained activity, and regional branding found in the Flanders experience.
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