Video: IFTF Forecast Presentation on Future of Science Parks and Technology Regions

The Research Triangle Foundation has posted video of my presentation of our forecast on the future of science parks and technology regions. (Report - Prezi overview)

IFTF Joins A New Innovation Policy Roundtable in DC

I've been thinking about and blogging about innovation here for the better part of a year, as part of my ongoing research looking at how emerging models for scientific research and technological innovation intersects with economic development.

Richard Posner on preconceptions and anticipating disasters

Richard Posner writes in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education about the current financial crisis, and why experts didn't take early warnings about it seriously.

The financial crisis, when it finally struck the nation full-blown in September 2008, caught the government, the financial community, and the economics profession unawares.

We can get help in understanding the blindness of experts to warning signs from the literature on surprise attacks. Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there were many warnings that Japan planned to attack Western possessions in Southeast Asia, and an attack on the U.S. fleet in Hawaii, known to be within range of Japan's large carrier fleet, was a logical measure, on Japan's part, for protecting the eastern flank of its attack on the Dutch East Indies, Burma, and Malaya. The warnings were disregarded because of preconceptions (including the belief that Japan would not attack the United States because it was too weak to have a reasonable chance of prevailing), the cost and difficulty of taking effective defensive measures against an uncertain danger, and the absence of a mechanism for aggregating, sifting, and analyzing warning information flowing in from many sources and for pushing it up to the decision-making level of government.

Similar factors made it difficult to heed the warning signs of the 2008 financial crisis. Preconceptions played an especially large role. It is tempting, indeed irresistible under conditions of uncertainty, to base policy to a degree on theoretical preconceptions, on a worldview, an ideology. But shaped as they are by past experiences, preconceptions can impede reactions to novel challenges. Most economists, and the kind of officials who tend to be appointed by Republican presidents, are heavily invested in the ideology of free markets, which teaches that competitive markets are, on the whole, self-correcting. Those officials and the economists to whom they turn for advice don't like to think of the economy as a kind of epileptic, subject to unpredictable, strange seizures.

The Future of Technology-led Economic Development

The American economy has long relied upon technological innovation to drive its economy. Today,basic investment in science and technology is once again taking center stage,as a cure for both our economic and environmental ills.

Making Lightweight Innovation Transparent, Literally

One of the focal areas for the Institute for the Future's Technology Horizons program this year is a theme we're calling "lightweight innovation".

We're in a strange point in the history of innovation. As governments start making the first big new investments in basic research and research infrastructure in a generation, companies are cutting R&D to the bone. A few years from now, if we can find a way to transfer the technology coming out of these new big scientific endeavors, there's likely to be a sustained period of great innovation.

Scripps Florida: The Elderly as Early Adopters of Biomedical Innovation

I just returned from a brief vacation in Jupiter, Florida. As Woody Allen once famously said, "seventy percent of success in life is showing up." I often find that this is the case in research, especially when cities and regions are what you study. You need to be open to serendipitous discoveries as you travel.

Corning Opens Silicon Valley Listening Post

I just happened to find this BusinessWeek clip sitting on my colleague Sean Ness' desk last week when I was in town. Talk about the serendipity of proximity. How ironic, since the article is all about creating satellite labs in Silicon Valley to "suck up ideas".

Corning has a long history of innovation - almost two centuries, worth. But as the indsutrial revolution moved on, and left upstate New York behind, it has struggled in recent years to stay relevant.

Read more >

Why Place Matters: The Connection Between Cities and Innovation

Ed Glaeser of Harvard University, who has written much over the last decade on the economics of cities and knowledge industries, has a good op-ed on the New York Times website today explaining why the city is likely to weather the recession well:

Those people who are continuing to pay high prices for Manhattan real estate are implicitly betting that New York’s human capital will continue to come up with new ways of reinventing the city.

I could hardly say it more succinctly.

Research Parks A Beacon of Hope for Struggling City

The New York Times is running an interesting piece chronicling the poor fortune of Columbia, South Carolina, a metropolitan area that "came closer than any other to being a microcosm of the nation over the last decade".

The article goes on to recite the litany of poor economic indicators, but like all good human interest stories, offers a glimmer of hope towards the middle of the piece:

Read more >

How Long Will the Winter Last for Corporate R&D?

The cash crunch is finally hitting the U.S. corporate innovation system head-on. Today's Wall Street Journal reports on a forthcoming study by the Battelle Memorial Institute that forecasts a 1.6 % fall in total U.S. R&D spending in 2009, after decades of faster-than-inflation increases. (link) It's not just the US, though - global R&D spending will faltten out in 2009.

The report is optimistic about the long-term outlook:

Read more >

Fine Time For A Manufacturing Comeback

The Economist's The World in 2009 arrived this morning, and with it a fascinating piece by Rolls-Royce CEO John Rose. Calling for a renewed emphasis on high value-added manufacturing in Britain, Rose argues:

Read more >

India Makes a Major R&D Push

In a major address last week in Bangalore, Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh announced a major expansion of funding for science research and infrastructure in India. As the SSTI weekly digest reported, "the country would form a quasi-independent panel modeled on the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to promote research in science and engineering. The new National Science and Engineering Research Board (NSERB) would make decisions regarding research funding and the creation of research centers around India."

Mobile Incubation: When Growing Up Doesn't Mean Moving Out

For someone who tends to keep their eyes on the world's creative class hotspots for signals of the future, especially in innovation systems, it came as a surprise recently to see that one of the most interesting recent ideas in incubators has popped up in Oklahoma City. According to NewsOK, "the Oklahoma City Redevelopment Authority and the Presbyterian Health Foundation are negotiating a plan that would create a 'mobile incubator' to attract and then retain startup biotech companies." (link to article)

Talk for Swedish Incubators and Science Parks Network: "Designing Spaces for Networked Innovation"

I haven't posted in the last month, but it's because I've been travelling extensively promoting the Science In Place program. On November 10, I had the pleasure of giving an invited talk for the annual conference of SiSP, the incubator and science parks asssocation of Sweden. The meeting took place in Lund, one of the oldest university towns in Scandinavia, and less than an hour's train ride across the Oresund from Copenhagen. This is in the Malmo region, home to SonyEriccson and numerous other high tech companies. Truly one of the world's great technopoles.

MIT and Harvard Leaders Make Policy Recommendations for the Next US President

Technology Review is running an article today
comprised of three letters to the next US president, suggesting policy
initiatives that they think are needed to address future challenges.

First up is Ernest J. Moniz, Director of The MIT Energy Initiative,
who argues for plans to develop a "portfolio of proven low-carbon
technologies". His specific proposals include: