Innovation by Adoption - Measuring and mapping absorptive capacity in UK nations and regions
Authors:
Sami Mahroum, Rob Huggins, Naomi Clayton, Kathy Pain and Peter Taylor
Year published:
October 2008
Download:
Innovation by Adoption report (PDF)
Today's globalised economy has not only made it easier to trade and to travel. With new technologies and the growth of migration, new knowledge and ideas can be spread more quickly than ever before.
Technology has also made novelty and innovation increasingly important to economic growth and development.
When government seeks to encourage regional innovation, it typically seeks to stimulate brand new ideas and their development within regional boundaries. Yet the truth is that many places and firms are better at adapting the ideas of others than generating new ideas of their own.
The ability to draw in new ideas from elsewhere and build on them at home is a more powerful stimulus than ever in today's economy. This important new NESTA report shows that the capacity of cities and regions to meet this challenge will have a major impact on their ability to stimulate economic growth.
This ‘absorptive capacity' will depend on factors such as the presence of universities - with their international academic networks - and multinational firms. Even in the age of technology, personal contact and travel remain important.
So, more attention needs to be paid to how firms and universities acquire new ideas from other places. International firms, migrants and students often have access to new knowledge from their home countries. Greater effort could be paid to tapping that resource and to persuading both domestic and international students to stay in a city after they graduate from its university.
But not every region will excel in all these areas. There is a strong case for each playing to its strengths, with resources being targeted accordingly.
Too many regional plans seem like carbon
copies of each other: this framework should help promote diversity. Equally, there is a good case for regions working together to benefit from the others' strengths.
I hope that the analysis offered in this report provides policymakers with the tools to think more imaginatively about how to stimulate regional and urban inventiveness and innovation.