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'Bringing the Economy Forward'
The 2006 ACSN Seminar ‘Bringing the Economy Forward: Innovation Policy in Canada and The Netherlands’ took place in Maastricht on November 9 and 10 in co-operation with Maastricht Economic and social Reserach and training center on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT).
After the official opening on Thursday night, ACSN’s keynote speaker Meric Gertler, Vice-Dean of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto, had the floor and spoke to a well-attended and attentive audience. He gave an overall view of the concept of innovation from a Canadian perspective. He emphasized the importance of circulating knowledge and referred to Porter’s Diamond. Universities can play a major role in that they can be seen as knowledge factories. For this reason the Canadian government has established a number of Canadian Research Chairs at various universities which are portals to global pipelines. Yet it is important not to neglect the local in the global as employees are sometimes more loyal to place than to employer. Ideally there should be a flow between university and industry (in regional Small Medium Enterprises, SME’s) through Research in Motion. Federal initiatives in biotech clusters can be found in Montreal, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Saskatoon. Should one aim for specialization or diversity? The former is risky when a product is not successful everything goes down. Jane Jacobs was a proponent of diversity in urban studies. Another issue Gertler raised was Embodied Knowledge. We cannot all win the talent battle. How does Canada work with brain gain and particularly with brain regain to lure Canadians from abroad.
The next speaker was Martin Eurlings, Deputee for Economic Affairs of the Government of the Province of Limburg, Maastricht, who presented us with his views on the region. Maastricht is in the triangle Eindhoven, Luik, Aachen and their cross border connections. The best way to predict the future is to create it and that is why the Maastricht region is highly ranked in chemicals, life science and food + nutrition.
The final speaker was Theo Roelandt, Director Strategy, Research and International Affairs from the Department of Economic Affairs, the Hague, who emphasized the national importance of innovation, especially with a view to the labour market. Labour growth in the Netherlands will diminish because of ageing and globalisation. He gave a rundown of the most important regional areas which made good use of innovation, especially the food and agribusiness in Wageningen and the logistics in Rotterdam, just to mention a few. Unfortunately science and technology is low in the Netherlands. The government has legalized tax reductions to companies who hire people for R & D (Research and Development). This, of course, is always easier to implement in bigger companies than in smaller ones. There is Dutch-Canadian co-operation in the Sixth Framework Program, Eureka, a European framework program and in Senternovum.
Many of the above topics were elaborately discussed over a delicious dinner, and even over breakfast the next morning. On Friday, smaller ingredients of innovation in three arenas (business, academia and government) were presented. ACSN members Gerrit Jan Hospers (BBT, University of Twente, Enschede), Pierre Mohnen (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht), Ben Hoetjes, (METAJUR, Maastricht) and faculty staff of UNU-MERIT gave excellent papers on concepts and examples of innovation, innovation and growth, innovation and human resources and the role of governments which can have a ‘hands-off’ approach or intensive interventionism (i.e. the American versus the French tradition).
Should you be interested in one of the presentations please let us know. We are trying to collect the papers in e-format so that they can be put on a CD.
Conny Steenman-Marcusse