In a recent McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives, IT and business executives agree that technological innovation, emerging economies, and offshore manufacturing are the three most important global business trends. But tech executives are more bullish about what innovation will contribute to their company’s profitability. Since they expect growth to come primarily through the improvement of current products, they emphasize new-product development less than business executives do.
Watch: Intelligent Cities – Smart Cities – Innovation Ecosystems
Bianca Potì and Roberto Basile developed a model to explain divergences in region/ country propensity to innovation through a system of innovation approach. They started from the idea that externalities and spillovers have positive effects on the innovative performance of firms, and focused on three types of interactions: (1) collaborative and network inter-firms relations; (2) sectoral-regional clusters; and (3) inter-institutional (industry-public research institutes) relations.
Cleveland, Corpus Christi, Philadelphia and Taipei Embrace Technology to Improve, Expand Municipal Services.
Intel Corporation announced (Aug. 18, 2005) an initiative to help communities use wireless technology and innovative applications to expand and improve services for municipal governments, businesses and citizens.
European Commission Press release (19 July 2005) point out that ‘The 2005 key figures show that EU R&D intensity is close to stagnation. Growth of R&D investment as a % of GDP has been slowing down since 2000 and only grew 0.2% between 2002 and 2003. Europe devotes a much lower share of its wealth to R&D than the US and Japan (1.93% of GDP in the EU in 2003, as compared to 2.59% in the US and 3.15% in Japan).
Philippe Aghion, Mathias Dewatripont, and Jeremy C. Stein developed a model that clarifies the respective advantages and disadvantages of academic and private-sector research. The fundamental tradeoff between academia and the private sector is one of creative control versus focus.
The ‘Intelligent Cities Initiative’, a wireless broadband pilot project created and implemented by the @Wales Digital Media Initiative, has been shortlisted in the ‘best public wi-fi product’ category of the international Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards, London, 20 April 2005.
IntelCities is an integrated RTD project funded from EU FP6 through the IST Programme. It brings together 18 cities, led by Manchester and Siena, with 20 ICT companies including Nokia, Microsoft and CISCO and 36 research groups to pool advanced knowledge and experience of electronic government, planning systems and citizen participation from across Europe.