Ricardo Firetti (p), Letícia Baptiston, Marcelo Ribeiro, César Lima, Augusto Gameiro, Luciene Lemes, João Cardoso, Claudina Bórquez , Edwin Henao, Carlos Brito, Mónica Schachter, Juan Esteve, Vicent Císcar, Celso Carrer

Burhan Can Karahasan

The formation of startups in the agri-food sector (agtechs) is dependent on innovation environments that positively condition them by offering infrastructure for the development of their businesses; through mentoring, networking, fundraising systems and product validation laboratories. They can be within universities with the necessary approximation of researchers or in the private sector, with the participation of leading companies that practice open innovation. Thus, this work sought to identify what are the conditioning factors for the success of the formation of agtechs, as well as the good practices of incubation within innovation environments of Ibero-American countries: Argentina (SABERR), Brazil (ESALQTec), Chile (INCUBATEC), Colombia (CUEE), Spain (PCUV) and Portugal (UPTEC). For this, exploratory research was carried out, based on secondary qualitative data originating from lectures held at the “International Online Forum on Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Agro 2020” and at the “4th World Meeting of the Agroinncuba Network”. The cases were purposely selected because they present different forms of management and performance, degrees of maturity and peculiarities that could be valuable in generating data. The lectures were transcribed and underwent an analytical and careful systematization, describing each innovation environment. The results showed that there is an entrepreneurial culture developed in the cases studied, wide participation of professors and Universities who work directly or indirectly in entrepreneurial training, validation of solutions and also have the support of the University's infrastructure. These innovation environments become catalysts for the generation of companies that will develop emerging issues in the regions where they are located. Another important aspect is the concern with the formation of talents even within the University, where companies take their demands to university professors who develop ideas together with their students, fundamental in the formation and practical vision and applied to the market. Finally, it was found that there are key activities that favor the development of more solid agtechs: fostering the creation and maintenance of innovation environments through public policies; the partnership between companies, Universities and the State with interaction between these actors; entrepreneurial training, with emphasis on the initial incubation phases of startups; the presence of mixed capital funds that aim to support the critical or risk phases of research activities; the formation of international partnerships; the presence of open innovation through the synergistic action of large companies and startups; and a strong interaction between different stakeholders that make up the regional innovation system.

Nailya Bagautdinova (p), Ekaterina Kadochnikova (p)

Ricardo Firetti

In the fourth industrial revolution, human capital, as a stock of produced knowledge, is becoming a key factor in sustainable economic growth, human-centered technologies are a major direction in leading management practices, and the digital divide is becoming a new factor of economic and social inequality. An important consequence of the relationship between the diffusion of technology as a product of knowledge and sustainable growth is the convergence of its rates. Endogenous growth theory and empirical evidence recognize that space is critical to knowledge diffusion and innovation. Research questions are of interest: Is there a long-term convergence of knowledge production in the regions? What is the impact of human capital and digitalization on knowledge production, taking into account their interregional interaction? Research hypothesis: the impact of human capital and digitalization on knowledge production is not the same, both directly (within regions) and indirectly (in neighboring regions). The production function of knowledge has been modified with temporal and spatial lags. The Moran and Geary indices were estimated and models of conditional β-convergence were built on panel data by the SAR, SDM, SEM types. It has been found that strong Russian regions contribute to the growth of human capital and the production of knowledge from their neighbors. Spatial interactions were found between the number of R&D personnel and internal R&D costs with the dependent variable. No significant direct and indirect effects of digitalization have been identified. The discovered β-convergence of the average growth rates of knowledge production and their spatial dependence under conditions when many regions have little human capital and patenting, can confirm the diffusion of technologies through their copying from the leading regions, which is cheaper than the invention of new ones. Regions that are technology followers attract external investment, gradually catch up with technology leaders and promote the convergence of knowledge production growth. However, the assumption about the significant impact of digitalization on the production of knowledge in the regions was not confirmed. The novelty of the study lies in measuring the convergence of the average growth rates of knowledge production in the Russian regions, taking into account spatial interactions. The results can be used by authorities and other institutions in managing the transformation of economic and social sectors through the introduction of digital technologies and platform solutions, in providing training in accordance with the goals of the National Project "Digital Economy".

Svetlana Rastvortseva (p)

Ekaterina Kadochnikova

It has been empirically proven that information and communication technologies (ICT) make a major contribution to economic growth and can be its consequence. The ICT infrastructure is one of the four bases of the knowledge economy concept. ICTs make it possible to create implicit knowledge and transform it into explicit knowledge, which contributes to better replication and dissemination of innovations and technologies. Through technology transfer, the competitiveness of the nation can be ensured in the long term. Thus, we can justify the indirect impact of the development of ICT on the socio-economic situation and the growth of the national and regional economy.
We propose to use static and dynamic approaches to assessing the impact of ICT factors on the socio-economic indicators of the development of regions and countries. The static approach is based on the use of the Cobb-Douglas production function, which, after some transformation, shows that the volume of output per capita depends on capital per capita and total factor productivity (ICT infrastructure). Similarly, using the neoclassical model of economic growth, we conclude that the growth of production per capita is equal to the growth of capital per capita and the growth of total factor productivity or technological progress (dynamic approach).
The paper shows, when the impact of ICT is on GDP per capita, there is a one-time increase. Then it decreases to the previous level. When efforts are directed immediately at increasing economic growth, stable rates of economic growth are achieved, which leads to a constant and exponential increase in output.
The study analyses the impact of ICT on GRP per capita and economic growth rates in the regions of Russia. This factor is relevant for economic development – the ICT infrastructure has a positive effect on economic indicators. Another system of models for comparison is calculated for 27 countries of the European Union. The results obtained indicate that for the EU countries, the period when the development of ICT infrastructure is especially relevant was passed until 2000. A comparison is made with similar studies in African countries, where the impact is also ambiguous. As a result, conclusions are drawn that the development of ICT infrastructure is a necessary, but not sufficient measure for the innovative development of the economy. In the future, the role of information and communication technologies in the development of innovation and the economy is shifting from stimulating to supporting innovation.

Burhan Can Karahasan (p)

Svetlana Rastvortseva

Among different factors shaping local economic growth, innovation and technological advances stand as core dimensions for policy makers. Actions and tools to promote more innovation, adjusting local labor force in terms of skills and education are key elements of the long lasting territorial cohesion debate within the advanced countries. Naturally, nation-wide and local policies are in effect to boost innovation and realize a more equal regional distribution. That said, we have relatively less talk for the developing world, where regional disparities play a crucial role in terms of growth and development. Besides, our knowledge for the locality of innovation and assessment of the factors shaping formation of innovative regions is extremely limited. Motivated from this gap, this paper aims to examine the geographical and firm level distribution of innovation in Turkey by exploring the spatial distribution of patent registrations. Within this setup our main interest is the possible influence of new start-ups as a key tool to promote innovation. The empirical strategy of the paper rests in a two-stage framework. The first stage aims at examining the geography of innovation at aggregate level. Using a panel data from 1997 to 2019 at the NUTS III level we hypothesize that regions with more new firm formation are going to be more innovative. In the second stage, we focus on firm level data for the year 2015 that is representative at the NUTS II level. We hypothesize that controlling for a host of firm level determinants, firms that locate in regions with more new firm formation will be more innovative. Our first set of evidence from regional analyses confirms that regions that host more new firms are on average more innovative compared to the other regions. These results are robust to controlling for certain regional characteristics, structural transformation, historically heterogeneities and a host of model specifications. Our second set of analyses from firm level data show that, after controlling for firm level heterogeneities the likelihood of being innovative is higher for those firms that locate in regions with more start-ups which we measure by the formation of new firms. These results confirm that territorial cohesion in innovation and firm level promotion of new ideas can be achieved by following territorial policies that ease the formation of new firms and that allow for an egalitarian competition at the local level.