Science and Technology Parks and Regional Economic Development

An International Perspective

Sara Amoroso, Albert N. Link, Mike Wright, Sara Amoroso, Albert N. Link, Mike Wright

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030309626
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030309633
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Economics

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.

© The Author(s) 2019

S. Amoroso et al. (eds.)Science and Technology Parks and Regional Economic DevelopmentPalgrave Advances in the Economics of Innovation and Technologyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30963-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. An International Perspective on Science and Technology Parks

Sara Amoroso¹ and Fernando Hervás Soriano¹

(1)

Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Sevilla, Spain

Sara Amoroso (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Fernando Hervás Soriano

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

1.1 Introduction

Science and Technology Parks (STPs) are organizations that accommodate and foster the growth of tenant firms, by managing the flow of knowledge and technology amongst universities, R&D institutions, companies and markets (IASP 2002). The concept of STPs derives from the evolution of industrial districts started in the UK at the beginning of the industrial revolution. The idea of concentrating companies in the same area quickly caught on in the US in the 1950s, during World War II, where the close cooperation between scientists and engineers played a major role in the allied victory (Vilà and Pagès 2008).

The success of early STPs such as the Stanford Research Park (affiliated with Stanford University) and the Research Triangle Park (Duke University, North Caroline State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) has fuelled the growth in the formation of STPs around the world. Since then, many countries have taken a great interest in the shaping of STPs. The main factor driving the development of STPs has been technology change: new and established firms introducing new technology demand new environments and services. STP models are functionally diverse in order to meet the needs of new industrial activities, changing industries, changing technologies and specific policy demands from governments.

The spontaneous and endogenous formation of these peculiar sets of industrial-research clusters accompanied by the local concentration of skilled labour and flourishing entrepreneurial eco-systems quickly became the object of investigation for both academic research and policy making (Saublens et al., 2016).

From a policy perspective, clusters and STPs have become an important element in many regional economic development strategies. Indeed, STPs have been considered by many governments, as innovation and local development policy tools aimed at fostering the creation and growth of indigenous knowledge-based start-ups.

Mainstream theories in economics explain how knowledge spillovers are a key explanatory factor for the clustering of innovative firms (Breschi and Malerba 2001). Much of the industrial and innovation economics literatures stressed the importance of localized learning and the transfer of tacit knowledge between firms and research centres. Indeed, while codified knowledge is relatively easy to transfer even among individuals far apart, tacit knowledge can only be transferred through everyday practice, face-to-face interaction and interfirm mobility of workers, all of which depend on geographical and cultural proximity (Bryson 2015). In an effort to extract the essence of successful STPs and industrial innovation clusters, business scholars have long tried to identify organizational factors and models that characterize different types of STPs. However, there is a problem in trying to measure the success of STPs, as there is a lack of clear consensus of the definition of such success (Phan et al. 2005).

Given that STPs have been widely used as innovation policy instruments to strengthen the local innovation system, more effort should be directed in systematically evaluating the effectiveness of such policy measures. The evaluation of impact has always been a challenging task due to a host of reasons.

First, there is a notable lack of quantitative data, especially at firm level, and, for many countries, the scant evidence of positive contribution of STPs to regional development is based on few selected, mostly successful, qualitative case studies, whose lessons are hardly generalizable. Second, studies aimed at quantitatively evaluating the performance of STPs very often compare two groups of firms—on-park and off-park—to assess whether the on-park firms perform better than the off-park ones. However, there may be a selection bias at play, as on-park firms may a priori be different from off-park firms. Third, the functional diversity of STPs resulted in heterogeneous groups of parks (Westhead 1997; Phan et al. 2005) that inevitably have different focuses and aims. Finally, due to this functional diversity, it is not straightforward to define what “success” is for an STP and how to measure it. Most of the empirical studies have focused on three main dimensions of tenants’ performance: economic performance, innovation performance and cooperation patterns of tenants.

Moreover, STPs may play a relevant role in the local economy and innovation eco-systems and as a tool of cluster policy. However, the non-spontaneous, top-down, “if you build it, they will come” approach to the formation of innovation clusters such as technopoles, STPs and firm incubators has not always proven to be effective (Cooke 2001; Taylor 2010), as it fails to take into consideration the complexity and diversity within local economies. Rather, government policies may play a crucial role in regional economic development by first identifying the critical conditions for sparking the growth of new STPs or innovative clusters, and then supporting the formation of such innovation catalyst, by recognizing local competencies in existing firms and embedded organizations.

With the intent of stimulating debate on the importance of collecting adequate quantitative data and developing appropriate methodologies for the impact evaluation of STPs, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, in collaboration with the Cartuja Science and Technology Park, organized the “Workshop on Science and Technology Parks in Europe – Steps towards a systematic and harmonized data collection” (Seville, Spain, 10–11 October 2018). The workshop brought together academics and practitioners dealing with STPs, and policy experts interested in STPs (and innovation clusters in general) as instruments for local economic development and innovation policy.

The main findings, common challenges and recommendations deriving from the workshop can be grouped into three thematics: (1) the relevance of STPs and clusters for innovation eco-systems; (2) heterogeneity and evolution of STPs and (3) identification and measurement issues.

1.2 Relevance of STPs and Clusters for Innovation Eco-Systems

Among the participants to the workshop, Anna Sobczak (Policy Officer for clusters and emerging industries at the European Commission) and Alexander Lemcke (Economist at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD) stressed the relevant role of STPs as a policy tool for fostering local clusters of innovative firms, and for technology diffusion through entrepreneurship. As the overall knowledge intensity of STPs is usually very high, they are likely to include seeds for the domains of knowledge-intensive specialization, on which regions can rely to increase their competitiveness. STPs are thus well placed to play a key role in Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3). Rissola in Chap. 10 presents a conceptual framework to explore how place-based innovation eco-systems support innovation and stimulate collaborative innovation locally, and shows—with two cases in Sweden and Slovenia—the coordination or orchestration role played by the STPs in their local innovation eco-systems. In Chap. 6, Nauwelaers et al. further highlight the role of STPs as knowledge-intensive territorially based actors that can contribute to the design and implementation of Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation. Three potential roles of STPs in RIS3 are discussed, together with limitations and success conditions for each of the three roles. This creates a new agenda for STPs as important actors and “boundary openers” in smart specialization strategies. Illustrative cases from Finland, England and the Netherlands show how STPs can actively and creatively contribute to the design and implementation of RIS3 and to the external connectivity of their home regions. Finally, Belitski and Audretsch in Chap. 7 report empirical evidence for 131 public universities in the UK during 2009–2016 on the positive effects of STPs and business incubators on entrepreneurship (start-ups and spinoffs), considering the moderating role of regional economic development.

1.3 Heterogeneity and Evolution of STPs

Another important message that emerged during the workshop is that there is no unique definition of what a STP is. On the one hand, park associations have their own definitions based on a description of activities related to the associations’ particular members. On the other hand, the existence of a great variety of shareholders and founders gives rise to heterogeneous groups of STPs. As Albert Link (Professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) said during his keynote speech: “if you’ve seen one research park, you’ve seen one research park”, stressing the underlying complexity of a generalized impact evaluation. In Chap. 9, Albahari draws on existing literature to propose that contrasting findings can in part be explained by most studies not considering the heterogeneous effect of the on-park location. He suggests that there is a need to understand what makes some parks more effective than others and detail several sources of park heterogeneity that may play a role when evaluating their contribution to tenants’ value creation.

In Chap. 3, Link goes beyond the concept of heterogeneity and offers an insightful consideration for the future of US University STPs. Link’s review of the evidence suggests that for STPs to remain viable, they must reidentify themselves especially in the eyes of their stakeholders. If they fail to do so, critical resources might not be forthcoming to deal with current infrastructure issues as well as their ability to attract new tenants in to the park.

Stoyan Kaymaktchiyski (Project Officer at the European Commission’s Competence Centre of Technology Transfer at the JRC) provided an insight into the projects and services of the Competence Centre in the domain of innovation eco-system facilitating technology transfer (as one of its three core domains of operation). He contributed to the discussion on the future of STPs presenting ideas on the ne...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. An International Perspective on Science and Technology Parks
• 2. The Strategic Choices That Science and Technology Parks Must Make
• 3. University Science and Technology Parks: A U.S. Perspective
• 4. Science Technology Parks and Close Relations: Heterogeneity, Context and Data
• 5. The Experience of Spanish Science and Technology Parks: Gathering Data
• 6. Science Parks and Place-based Innovation
• 7. Science Parks and Business Incubation in the United Kingdom: Evidence from University Spin-Offs and Staff Start-Ups
• 8. Technoparks in Turkey: A Descriptive Study
• 9. Heterogeneity as a Key for Understanding Science and Technology Park Effects
• 10. Science and Technology Parks as Drivers of Place-Based Innovation Ecosystems: Two Examples from Europe
• 11. Toward a Framework to Advance the Knowledge on Science Park Contribution: An Analysis of Science Park Heterogeneity
• 12. Lessons Learned and a Future Research and Policy Agenda on Science Parks
• Back Matter