This book is the first collection of scholarly writings on science and technology parks (STPs) that has an international perspective. It explores concrete ways to systematically collect information on public and private organizations related to their support of and activities in STPs, including incubation to start-up and scale-up, and collaborations with centers of knowledge creation. Rather than perpetuate the qualitative assessment of successful practices, the focus of this book is to present quantitative and qualitative evidence of the impact of STPs on regional development and to raise awareness on the importance of systematic data collection and analysis. Only through a systematic collection of data on fiscal identification numbers of companies, universities, and university spin-offs will it be possible to conduct current and especially future analyses on the impact of STPs on entrepreneurship, effectiveness of technology transfer, and regional economic development. To this extent, the synergistic views of academics, representatives from STPs, and policy experts are crucial.

More than half of the 116 research parks now operating in the United States were established during the 1980s, with the aim of boosting regional economic growth. But until now no one has systematically analyzed whether research parks do in fact generate new businesses and jobs. Using their own surveys of all existing parks and case studies of three of the most successful--Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, Stanford Research Park in California, and the University of Utah Research Park--Michael Luger and Harvey Goldstein examine the economic impact of such facilities. As the name suggests, a research park is typically meant to provide a spacious setting where basic and applied technological research can be quietly pursued. Because of the experience of a few older and prominent research parks, new parks are expected to generate economic growth for their regions. New or old, most parks have close ties to universities, which join in such ventures to enhance their capabilities as centers of research, provide outlets for entrepreneurial faculty members, and increase job opportunities for graduate students. Too often, the authors say, the vision of "incubating" economic growth in a gardenlike preserve of research and development has failed because of poor planning, lack of firm leadership, and bad luck. Although the longest-lasting parks have met their original goals, the newer ones have enjoyed at best only slight success. Luger and Goldstein conclude that the older facilities have captured much of the market for concentrations of research and development firms, and they discuss alternative strategies that could achieve some of the same goals as research parks, but in a less costly way. Many of these alternatives continue to include a role for universities, and Luger and Goldstein shed fresh light on the linkage between higher education and the use of knowledge for profit.

Industrial and technology parks are commonly regarded as a policy panacea. They tend to be considered as the ideal instrument to alleviate an assortment of institutional, political, economic, social and ultimately, technological weaknesses and often form the centrepiece of development strategies. Yet, the real impact of industrial and technology parks, especially in emerging countries is still poorly understood. Focusing on examples from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the book represents a first approach to understand the potential and reality of industrial and technology parks in emerging countries. It is argued that although some parks have been successful in addressing a range of key problems, including underdevelopment, unemployment and a lack of investment, the majority have failed to deliver, rendering the promise of many parks little more than a pipedream.

In recent years state and local governments, universities, and private sector groups have become increasingly active in promoting technological innovation and technology-based business development in their local economies. These efforts have resulted in productive new forms of partnership and cooperation at all levels. While federal programs have sometimes supported these efforts, and while recent changes in federal policy have improved the climate for high technology development initiatives, in most cases both the initiative and the ongoing leadership have come from imaginative state and local leaders. This five-chapter report provides: (1) an overview of high-technology development (HTD); (2) a definition and analysis of high-technology industries; (3) a discussion of entrepreneurship and venture capital in HTD; (4) a discussion of state and local government, university, and private sector initiatives for HTD; and (5) an examination of the federal role in regional HTD. Three reports are appended: they concern (1) the theoretical base for high-technology location and regional development, (2) a regional assessment of the formation and growth in high-technology firms, and (3) a preliminary investigation of recent evidence on high-technology industries' spatial tendencies. One factor examined in the latter report is the nature and diversity among high-technology industries in both growth performance and locational tendencies. (JN).

Title first published in 2003. This book examines types of advanced technology Chinese districts set aside for developing products for national and global markets. Culminating in a proposed best practice model for Chinese integration into global networks, based on China's own particular political economy.

In Strategic Coupling, Henry Wai-chung Yeung examines economic development and state-firm relations in East Asia, focusing in particular on South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. As a result of the massive changes of the last twenty-five years, new explanations must be found for the economic success and industrial transformation in the region. State-assisted startups and incubator firms in East Asia have become major players in the manufacture of products with a global reach: Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision has assembled more than 500 million iPhones, for instance, and South Korea’s Samsung provides the iPhone’s semiconductor chips and retina displays.Drawing on extensive interviews with top executives and senior government officials, Yeung argues that since the late 1980s, many East Asian firms have outgrown their home states, and are no longer dependent on state support; as a result the developmental state has lost much of its capacity to steer and direct industrialization. We cannot read the performance of national firms as a direct outcome of state action. Yeung calls for a thorough renovation of the still-dominant view that states are the primary engine of industrial transformation. He stresses action by national firms and traces various global production networks to incorporate both firm-specific activities and the international political economy. He identifies two sets of dynamics in these national-global articulations known as strategic coupling: coevolution in the confluence of state, firm, and global production networks, and the various strategies pursued by East Asian firms to attain competitive positions in the global marketplace.

Six years of UNESCO-World Technopolis Association workshops, held at various world cities and attended by government officials and scholars from nearly all the world’s countries, have resulted in a uniquely complete collection of reports on science park and science city projects in most of those countries. These reports, of which a selected few form chapters in this book, allow readers to compare knowledge-based development strategies, practices, and successes across countries. The chapters illustrate varying levels of cooperation across government, industry, and academic sectors in the respective projects – and the reasons and philosophies underlying this variation - and resulting differences in practices and results.

The commercialization of academic knowledge is increasingly seen as a potential economic development model, particularly for improving the capabilities and economic performance of regions. This insightful volume investigates the emerging factors in knowledge commercialization from an international perspective and highlights research agendas and challenges to be met across academia, industry and government. The expert contributors focus specifically on the new role of universities in regional economic development through knowledge commercialization, as well as university-industry interaction and the factors that influence knowledge and technology transfer. They explore Ôknowledge commercializationÕ in the US, Ôknowledge valorizationÕ in Europe, and technology transfer dynamics in China. A forum for discussion of whether, why, and how commercialization and valorization of knowledge can lead to higher levels of innovation and economic development from an international perspective is also provided. This thought-provoking book will prove a stimulating read for academics, students and researchers with an interest in regional economics, regional studies and knowledge management.

The genesis and diffusion of innovation depends upon the density of the cognitive and market relationships among individuals, organisations and institutions at both the micro- and macro-economic level. This book presents a progressive enquiry into the economic and social origins of innovation.

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