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Leapfrogging or Levelling Up? Driving place-based growth (CIMR debates in Public Policy)

When:
Venue: Online

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Join the Centre for Innovation Management Research on Wednesday 10 May for our online lunchtime seminar: Leapfrogging or Levelling Up? Driving place-based growth

The online debate is part of the CIMR Debates and Workshops in Public Policy series.

Panel

  • Dr Jonathan Potter, OECD
  • Dr Enrico Vanino, University of Sheffield
  • Discussant: Jacadi Nicholas, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)
  • Chair: Emma Palmer Foster, Birkbeck, University of London 

Abstract 

Innovation and entrepreneurship can both be viewed as drivers of regional growth hence understanding of how this happens should help us to develop policy levers for growth. UK Government economic policy has an increased focus on place with initiatives such as Place-based R&D and Levelling Up. There is a desire to see that R&D interventions are in concert with wider improvements made in support of levelling up areas across the UK.

How can we learn from existing regional data in order to drive economic growth? Data from the OECD suggests that entrepreneurial performance in European regions is ‘sticky’ – regions maintain their status as low, medium or high performers for extended periods of time. New data suggests that similar patterns are seen in the US – although some regions exhibit periods of significant change in entrepreneurial performance. The terms ‘leapfroggers’ and ‘plungers’ have been devised to describe regions with significantly increased or decreased entrepreneurial performance respectively. It has been suggested that more policy lessons can be learned from these regions of rapid improvement, rather than from centres of excellence. This could have implications for regions at the margins of performance.

If we view entrepreneurialism and innovation as different sides of the same coin, then the role of innovation in regional growth should be examined. Creating and obtaining knowledge are drivers of innovation, with knowledge spillovers and open innovation key mechanisms for obtaining knowledge. Recent studies suggest that in UK publicly funded R&D, there are differences in the regions where horizontal spillovers and vertical spillovers are strongest – place-based innovation varies across the UK.

Biographies 

Emma Palmer Foster is a part-time MPhil/PhD student in the Department of Business, Economics and Informatics at Birkbeck University of London, supervised by Helen Lawton Smith, Professor of Entrepreneurship. Her research is focused on the innovation implications of different stakeholder patterns in European bioscience parks, an area in which she has extensive practitioner expertise. In addition she works as a tutor on Birkbeck undergraduate and Master’s degree modules on Management of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Innovation respectively.

A biochemist by background, Emma’s interests in science, finance and innovation are also reflected in corporate work where as EJ Palmer Consulting she is a consultant in the UK and European pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector. This involves advising innovation organisations and companies on strategy, investor relations and communications. 

Jonathan Potter is Head of the Entrepreneurship Policy and Analysis Unit of the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities. He directs OECD work streams including country reviews of SME and entrepreneurship policy, evaluation approaches for SME and entrepreneurship policy, policies for inclusive entrepreneurship including support for youth and women, and policies for entrepreneurial ecosystems at national and regional levels. He has worked at the OECD since 1997 and holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Dr Enrico Vaninois a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Sheffield, with research experience and publications in the economics of innovation, focusing mostly on the analysis of R&D public funding, the spatial distribution of economic activities and innovation, knowledge externalities from the public science system, and the role of place-based policies for productivity catch-up and technological diffusion. He is currently working on a research project looking at spatial and sectoral complementarities in public support for innovation focusing on two UK experiments, and on a different project analysing the direct and indirect effect of the Catapult network on UK firms technological adoption and economic growth. Before joining Sheffield, he was a fellow in economic geography at the LSE. He has collaborated on related topics with Innovate UK, the Enterprise Research Centre, the Productivity Institute, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the UK Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.

Jacadi Nicholas is a Senior Government Economist in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), having led DSIT’s RD&I place analysis team for several years, she is now the lead analyst on the Levelling Up R&D Mission – the forefront of innovation and regional inequality in Government. A master in Finance and Econometrics, a poet and a member of The JK Cartoon Studios – Jacadi merges the analytical and creative sides of herself and is passionate about designing innovative analytical data projects - winning several awards in BEIS for analysis.

 

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