Juliane Schwarz (p)

Per Botolf Maurseth

The objective of this study is to look at sustainable development within business support and how the transition to a low-carbon future is directly and indirectly addressed in incubation, acceleration and financial start-up provisions. The research questions are:

• How are sustainable development and transition embedded in business support interventions (both methodically and unintentionally)?
• How can this be further enhanced?
• How many of these are sector-specific?
• How can it be applied to other sectors?

These questions are addressed in a case study of the UK Catapult Network, a network of publicly funded technology and innovation centres aiming at strengthening the UK's capability for innovation in various sectors. Data consists of policy and strategy documents review, interviews with stakeholders within individual Catapults and businesses supported.

Initial findings suggest that business support interventions in the Catapults are expectedly ‘traditional’ aiming at helping new ventures to start up, scale up and succeed in acquiring funding. In addition, some observable practices can be classified as innovations in support of Net Zero transition. From spill-over effects associated with mutual interest and knowledge sharing of founders and owners interested in sustainable products or services to sharing good practices in acquisition and supply chain management. Whereas some of these are sector-specific, for example, wind turbine elements manufacturing or the maintenance of energy networks. However, some could be easily transferred to other sectors or catapults and would greatly benefit from further knowledge sharing within the whole Catapult Network.

Elodi Carpentier, Daniel Nepelski (p)

Juliane Schwarz

Digitalise or perish is a new mantra. Digitalisation is seen as a solution to all problems from decreasing competitiveness of the economy to environmental degradation. Even if true, economy-wide rollout of digital technologies is easier said than done. Lacking skills, high investment costs, inadequate infrastructure, complexity of digital technologies or unclear benefits are just a few examples of the barriers to turning digital opportunities into economic value. To address these challenges, created in 2023 and covering all the European regions, the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH) network provides tailor-made digitalisation support to SMEs and public sector organisations in all regions and sectors of the EU. Regional context influences the composition of an EDIH and the way it is organized. The structure of the regional economy in which the EDIH operates also shapes the offerings of the EDIH and the demand for its services. Reflecting their unique combination of territories, sectors and technologies covered, the EDIHs are formed of a diverse array of organisations, including private companies, research organisations, universities, and public sector entities. The services provided by EDIHs to SMEs and public sector organisations encompass a broad spectrum of technologies and sectors showcasing diversity in strategies and designs. The hubs demonstrate strong competencies in key technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and High-Performance Computing. This paper analyses the process of EDIH formation, their characteristics and activities. It contributes to the discussion on how to support impactful digital innovation in Europe.

Yihan Wang (p), Sébastien Bourdin (p), Ekaterina Turkina

Daniel Nepelski

The formation of innovation cluster embodies a region’s innovation capabilities and industrial competitiveness. Connecting the diverse key stakeholders in the regional innovation ecosystem through intermediary agencies, communities serve as the middle ground of the innovation clusters by orchestrating places, spaces, projects and events. However, limited empirical research is conducted on how innovation intermediaries in the middleground facilitate the community building and network configurations. Specifically, it is not clear how affiliation to local communities contribute the network-based competitive advantages among the cluster members.
In this study, we analyze how affiliation to local communities contribute to the network embeddedness of stakeholders in innovation clusters. First, we introduce the driving forces of network formation in innovation cluster, as well as how the intermediaries create the community middleground that facilitate this process. Then, we discuss the network-based competitive advantages that embedded stakeholders can achieve, including relational embeddedness from direct contact and structural embeddedness from the stakeholder’s position in the whole network. We propose that, in terms of relational embeddedness, cluster community members tend to frequently participate in more network events and build up more linkages with diverse stakeholders. Also, in terms of structural embeddedness, they tend to have higher degree of brokerage power, be more efficient in deploying social capital and become more likely to anchor the network core. Furthermore, there is moderation effect of community membership for foreign stakeholder in enhancing there relational and structural embeddedness the local innovation cluster.
To support our arguments, we conduct social network analysis on the 2-mode event-stakeholder network of BioQuébec, one of the largest biopharmaceutical innovation cluster communities in Canada. Based on the co-participation tendency among registered community members and non-members in the social events and projects organized by BioQuébec, we distinguish the clear advantages among community members building direct linkages, acquiring brokerage power, and effectively deploying social capital. Moreover, we also find the foreign cluster community members have higher relational and structural embeddedness than local members. Nonetheless, we do not find significant evidence in network core affiliation, as some members face the challenges of “lock-in”. Without the brokerage of intermediaries, members can still remain isolate or build peripheral components without connection to the network core. Hence, local policymakers need to act as the boundary spanners that fill the structural holes in the network, thereafter, balance the relationship between local competition and cooperation.

Per Botolf Maurseth (p)

Yihan Wang

Recent decades have witnessed a strong globalization process. This has been so for international trade and international capital markets, but also in the field of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). IPRs were formerly in the domains of nation states. International treaties have dictated convergence in IPR institutions across the world. This paper gives a short overview of these developments. Incentives for IPRs are stronger for more innovative countries. Therefore, innovative countries traditionally had stronger IPR than less innovative countries. The TRIPS agreement was a compromise between innovative and less innovative countries. The agreement dictates more protection of IPRs than some countries wanted and less than other countries wanted. But the negotiated treatment may have strengthened innovative countries negotiation power vis-à-vis other countries in the post-TRIPs world. A simple model of international IPR protection shed light on some mechanisms. I show that in the TRIPS world, negotiations about stronger IPRs in new preferential trade agreements may well result in excessive IPR relative to a global optimum.