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A Message from Carlos Gutierrez Building Innovation-Driven Regional Economies in Small and Mid-Sized Metro Centers Creating Systems for Entrepreneur Support Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Rural America Kentucky’s Rural Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program: An In-Depth Look at How It Works  The Importance of Networks and Capacity Building in Technology Transfer and Commercialization
Best Practices in University Technology Transfer
A 21st Century Model for Engineering Education
Turning the Corner: Trends in Angel Investing Growing Ohio’s High Performance Economy Replanting the Economic Forest in Northeast Ohio Subscribe
About Economic Development America
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Building Innovation-Driven Regional Economies in Small and Mid-Sized Metro Centers (cont.)Figure 1 shows the ingredients that regions are focused on to help build an innovation-driven regional economy led by these types of leadership: Innovation Requires a Focus on Technology, Talent, and CapitalIn a sense, innovation can be described as the combination of research turned into technology (otherwise it has no value), talent and capital. Others may call this entrepreneurship because you need smart people, ideas, and ways to turn the ideas into products or processes that someone will buy. Innovation economies, for purposes of this discussion, are focused on technology-related efforts. But that does not mean innovation economies cannot be based around tourism or other comparative advantages. Regardless of the terminology used, regions ultimately need three key ingredients to build innovation-driven economies: technology, talent and capital. With the maturing of the digital revolution and the blossoming of the bio and nano revolutions, the pie of opportunities is not static for small and mid-size regions. In the field of biosciences alone, areas such as genomics, bioinformatics, and proteomics did not exist until just a few years ago. This presents not only new research and technology opportunities in terms of the research enterprise, but also opens up new market opportunities for existing and startup firms as well. Many small- to mid-size regions of the country are beginning to explore how the applications of these new technologies can open up new markets for existing companies and lead to totally new industries. In Eddyville, Iowa, for example, where the economy traditionally has been based on the production of agricultural commodities (corn, soybeans, etc.), they now see opportunities in the areas of value-added biofluids, green manufacturing, biodiesel and yet to be discovered renewable resources. Research by itself does not create this value-add in industrial sectors, but it is a necessary ingredient to developing and applying technology. Some small- and mid-sized metro regions have at least one national research university, as well as regional public universities, community colleges and core industries from which to develop and capture technology. Smaller, regional research universities often contribute more to regional economic development than their larger counterparts, as they often have closer ties to area firms and leaders. They also are more likely to have faculty that are applications-oriented. Many smaller regions can take better advantage of their regional universities and health centers in association with industry to undertake proof of concept, applications development and problem solving roles. While it can present a challenge to work with firms such as small manufacturers that have no track record of collaborating with universities, the key is to take a region’s intellectual capital from whatever source – faculty expertise, industrial base – and build relationships to stimulate product innovation. |
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