Does green public procurement trigger environmental innovations?

Green public procurement has gained high political priority and is argued to be an effective demand-side policy to trigger environmental innovations. However, the empirical evidence on its innovation impact is limited. We construct a novel firm-level dataset to investigate the effect of winning public procurement tenders with additional environmental award criteria on firms’ introduction of environmental innovations. Employing cross-sectional difference-in-differences methods, we find that winning public procurement awards with environmental selection criteria increases a firm's probability of introducing more environmentally friendly products on average by 20 percentage points. We show that this effect is driven by small and medium-sized firms and is not statistically significant for larger firms. Furthremore, there is no statistically significant effect on the introduction of more environmentally friendly processes.     

Do public subsidies stimulate private R&D spending?

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the empirical literature that evaluates the effects of public R&D support on private R&D investment. We apply a matching approach to analyze the effects of public R&D support in Spanish manufacturing firms. We examine whether or not the effects are different depending on the size of the firm and the technological level of the sectors in which the firms operate. We evaluate the effect of R&D subsidies on the subsidized firms, considering both the effect of subsidies on firms that would have performed R&D in the absence of public support and also the effect of inducement to undertake R&D activities. We also analyze the effect that concession of subsidies might have on firms which do not enjoy this type of support. The main conclusions indicate absence of “crowding-out”, either full or partial, between public and private spending and that some firms - mainly small and operating in low technology sectors - might not have engaged in R&D activities in the absence of subsidies.     

The public library in the UK’s Big Society

Graham Dutfield is professor of international governance at Leeds, research affiliate of the Intellectual Property Law and Technology Program at York University, Toronto, and adjunct professor at the Center for Studies of Intellectual Property Rights at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan. His research on intellectual property crosses several disciplines, including law, history, politics, economics and anthropology.     

Who is willing to pay for science? On the relationship between public perception of science and the attitude to public funding of science

This article examines the relationship between the general public's understanding of science and the attitude towards public funding of scientific research. It applies a multivariate and discriminant analysis (Wilks' Lambda), in addition to a more commonly used bivariate analysis (Cramer's V), to data compiled from the Third National Survey on the Social Perception of Science and Technology in Spain (FECYT, 2006). The general conclusion is that the multivariate analysis produces information complementary to the bivariate analysis, and that the variables commonly applied in public perception studies have limited predictive value with respect to the attitude towards public funding of scientific research.     

Allocative efficiency in public research funding: Can bibliometrics help?

The use of outcome control modes of research evaluation exercises is ever more frequent. They are conceived as tools to stimulate increased levels of research productivity, and to guide choices in allocating components of government research budgets for publicly funded institutions. There are several contributions in the literature that compare the different methodological approaches that policy makers could adopt for these exercises, however the comparisons are limited to only a few disciplines. This work, examining the case of the whole of the “hard sciences” of the Italian academic system, makes a comparison between results obtained from peer review type of evaluations (as adopted by the Ministry of Universities and Research) and those possible from a bibliometric approach (as developed by the authors). The aim is to understand to what extent bibliometric methodology, which is noted as relatively inexpensive, time-saving and exhaustive, can complement and integrate peer review methodology in research evaluation.     

Partly risky,partly solid – Performance study of public innovation loans

In this paper I attempt to measure the ability of a Norwegian publicly subsidized loan program to identify innovative firms that are victims of market imperfections. I apply three complementary control groups, which all have in common that they address specific unobservable characteristics of the program participants. The program participants perform better on a variety of growth measures compared to the firms rejected by the program. Compared with firms that receive private credit financing, I do not find that the program participants perform better in the upper quantiles of the contingent performance distribution despite a lower survival rate. The latter result suggests that the program does not seem to succeed in identifying a target group of firms with a sufficiently high growth potential. Firms with innovation loans are not outperformed by venture portfolio companies with respect to sales growth. The venture portfolio companies do, however, have higher survival rates as well as stronger growth in employment and assets. The latter result possibly indicates that the venture portfolio companies are more likely to succeed in the long run. The overall results indicate that the selection competency of the bureaucrats administrating the program is at level with that of private banks, and possibly also of that of venture funds. Still, in order for the program to provide the same level of welfare improvement as regular business credit provided by the private market, I find that the positive externalities from the program must be sufficiently large to compensate for the direct public subsidy element including risk adjusted return on equity and social costs of public funds.     

Passengers information in public transport and privacy: Can anonymous tickets prevent tracking?

Modern public transportation companies often record large amounts of information. Privacy can be safeguarded by discarding nominal tickets, or introducing anonymization techniques. But is anonymity at all possible when everything is recorded? In this paper we discuss travel information management in the public transport scenario and we present a revealing case study (relative to the city of Cesena, Italy), showing that even anonymous 10-ride bus tickets may betray a user's privacy expectations. We also propose a number of recommendations for the design and management of public transport information systems, aimed at preserving the users’ privacy, while retaining the useful analysis features enabled by the e-ticketing technology.     

Pandora's Box or panacea? Using metaphors to create the public representations of biotechnology

This paper addresses the use of metaphors in creating public representations of biotechnology in the United Kingdom's leading quality press. Metaphors referring to biotechnology and its applications have been analyzed in press articles covering the period 1973-1996. The paper describes how metaphors can be used to popularize complex technical information while at the same time providing a highly charged message about the technology itself. The analysis draws conclusions about the content and general direction of the debate on biotechnology during the past three decades.     

“Saving Lives”: A computer simulation game for public education about emergencies

Abstract

One facet of the Information Revolution in which the nation finds itself involves the utilization of computers, video systems, and a variety of telecommunications capabilities by those who must cope with emergency situations. Such technologies possess a significant potential for performing emergency public education and transmitting key information that is essential for survival. An “Emergency Public Information Competitive Challenge Grant,” under the aegis of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has sponsored an effort to use computer technology—both large, time‐sharing systems and small personal computers—to develop “computer games” which will help teach techniques of emergency management to the public at large.     

Innovation on demand—Can public procurement drive market success of innovations?

Public procurement has been at the centre of recent discussions on innovation policy. We embed it into the broader framework of public policies to stimulate innovation: regulations, R&D subsidies and basic research at universities. We synthesize the characteristics of all four instruments conceptionally and quantitatively compare their effects on innovation success for 1100 firms in Germany. We find that public procurement and knowledge spillovers from universities propel innovation success equally. The benefits of university knowledge apply uniformly to all firms. However, public procurement is especially effective for smaller firms in regions under economic stress and in distributive or technological services.     

Does the public communication of science influence scientific vocation? Results of a national survey

The purpose of this work was to determine if public communication of science and technology (PCST) has any influence on people's decision to become dedicated to scientific research. For this reason, a national survey involving 852 researchers from all disciplines was conducted in Argentina. The results showed that the factors affecting scientific vocation are many, and that, regardless of differences in gender, age or discipline, the greatest influence on the decision to go into scientific research is exerted by teachers. The analysis also demonstrated that different manifestations of PCST (science books, press articles, audiovisual material, and activities such as visits to science museums) play a significant role in awakening the vocation for science. From these results it may be stated that PCST--in addition to its function of informing and forming citizens--exerts a significant influence in fostering scientific vocation.     

“But the data is already public”: on the ethics of research in Facebook

In 2008, a group of researchers publicly released profile data collected from the Facebook accounts of an entire cohort of college students from a US university. While good-faith attempts were made to hide the identity of the institution and protect the privacy of the data subjects, the source of the data was quickly identified, placing the privacy of the students at risk. Using this incident as a case study, this paper articulates a set of ethical concerns that must be addressed before embarking on future research in social networking sites, including the nature of consent, properly identifying and respecting expectations of privacy on social network sites, strategies for data anonymization prior to public release, and the relative expertise of institutional review boards when confronted with research projects based on data gleaned from social media.     

A time to nourish? Evaluating the impact of public procurement on technological generality through patent data

Innovative public procurement is increasingly considered as a form of public support for private innovation activities by both innovation scholars and policymakers. Economic historians have suggested an even more fundamental role of public procurement in setting the pace of technological change, reporting how defense-related procurement has had a major impact on the emergence and diffusion of many general purpose technologies developed in the United States in the 20th century. In this paper, I suggest that procurement might represent one of the most important elements in creating the right soil to ‘cultivate’ a technology that may have the potential to reach high levels of pervasiveness. To test this hypothesis, I make use of patent data and patent citations. I design a quasi-experiment to compare the changes in the level of generality level over time, between a group of treated and a group of control patents. A patent is assigned to the treatment group if it receives a citation from a patent related to public procurement. Results suggest a positive and significant impact of innovative public procurement on the generality of a patent.     

The media and the public opinion on genetics and biotechnology: mirrors, windows, or walls?

Arguments regarding the relationship between media discourse and public opinion have raged for decades, if not centuries. COmparing media coverage of biotechnology between 1992 and 2001 in two national newspapers with national survey data collected in early 2003, an argument is made that a general one-dimensional media effect is not occurring within the US public regarding media discourse. Given the multivalent characteristics of the media and the interpretive filters used by audiences - including ignoring information - even strong slants by the presumed opinion-leading press (the New York Times and the Washington Post) do not predict public opinion on a nascent issue such as biotechnology. While some observations show these mirrors to be ephemeral.     

Content-oriented or persona-oriented? A text analytics of endorsement strategies on public willingness to participate in citizen science

This paper applies text analytics to study how the orientation of an endorsement strategy affects the public's willingness to participate in citizen science projects. Using 850 citizen science projects with 1,243 endorsements from an online citizen science platform Experiment.com as corpus, the orientation of the endorsement strategies is detected using the naïve Bayesian inference model with a Laplace estimator. Our results inform that 39% of the endorsements are persona-oriented while 61% are content-oriented. A persona-oriented endorsement strategy draws more participants but reduces the per capita invested. A content-oriented endorsement strategy has the opposite effect. Further, the project initiator's identity strengthens or weakens the effect of the endorsement orientation strategy. In the number of participants model, the projects initiated by the professional scientists and research students are positively moderated by persona-orientation endorsements, whereas the projects initiated by the amateur researchers are negatively moderated. The converse holds for the per capita invested model.     

Who owns what? Private ownership and the public interest in recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s

This essay analyzes how academic institutions, government agencies, and the nascent biotech industry contested the legal ownership of recombinant DNA technology in the name of the public interest. It reconstructs the way a small but influential group of government officials and university research administrators introduced a new framework for the commercialization of academic research in the context of a national debate over scientific research's contributions to American economic prosperity and public health. They claimed that private ownership of inventions arising from public support would provide a powerful means to liberate biomedical discoveries for public benefit. This articulation of the causal link between private ownership and the public interest, it is argued, justified a new set of expectations about the use of research results arising from government or public support, in which commercialization became a new public obligation for academic researchers. By highlighting the broader economic and legal shifts that prompted the reconfiguration of the ownership of public knowledge in late twentieth-century American capitalism, the essay examines the threads of policy-informed legal ideas that came together to affirm private ownership of biomedical knowledge as germane to the public interest in the coming of age of biotechnology and genetic medicine.     

The effect of public subsidies on firms’ investment–cash flow sensitivity: Transient or persistent?

This work analyses the effect of public subsidies on firms’ investments and investment–cash flow sensitivity in a longitudinal sample of 288 Italian unlisted non-venture capital backed owner-managed new-technology-based firms (NTBFs), observed over a 15-year period from 1994 to 2008. Seventy five of these firms received one or more public subsidies in the observation period. We use an error correction model (ECM) specification and system generalised method of moment (GMM) techniques that take into account the endogeneity of public subsidies. First, we find that the investments of small NTBFs are sensitive to internal cash flows, while those of large NTBFs are not. Receipt of public subsidies by small NTBFs results in an increased investment rate and a reduced investment–cash flow sensitivity, in the immediately following year. We interpret these results as an indication of the relaxation of financial constraints. Moreover, while the increase in the investment rate does not persist in the long run, the dependence of investments on cash flow remains negligible after receipt of the first public subsidy. These results support the view that public subsidies can help small NTBFs in persistently removing the financial constraints that bind their investment activity.     

Empirical observations on New Public Management to increase efficiency in public research—Boon or bane?

New Public Management (NPM) was the catch phrase of the reforms in the public research and higher education sector for the last decades. The postulated effect of the NPM reforms is increased efficiency in governmental resource spending on the public higher education and research institutions. Though backed by theoretical considerations, this hypothesis has hardly been tested empirically. Using a unique dataset of German research units, this paper deals with the influence that NPM mechanisms have on research performance. Controlling for different university mission, it can be shown that both greater internal hierarchy (especially “strong presidents”) as well as greater operative flexibility for the researchers themselves increase research performance. Some of the variables, including the presence of research councils, have a positive effect on research efficiency under some definitions of research output. On the other hand, the introduction of resource accounting systems has a negative impact. All in all, we conclude that the public science sector reforms implemented in most of the Western economies were heading into the right direction by providing greater performance incentives and increasing allocative efficiency in resource spending. Also we provide some ideas of how NPM may be combined in order to construct a sensible governance system. We conclude that the mechanisms should be selected based on the mission of the university.     

Are public subsidies effective for university spinoffs? Evidence from SBIR awards in the University of California system

This study examines the impact of public subsidies, and specifically, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards on university spinoff companies. Using unique data for a population of University of California spinoffs, we find pronounced differences between companies commercializing digital technologies (software and hardware), and those that focus on other product spaces. For digital spinoffs, receiving an SBIR award has a negative impact on raising venture capital and no impact on IPOs, exits or first sales. Conversely, for non-digital firms (e.g., biotechnology, energy), receiving an SBIR award has a positive effect on raising venture capital and performance outcomes. We reason that digital technologies are subject to faster cycle times and higher market uncertainty, relative to technological uncertainty. Digital firms may therefore benefit less from subsidies designed to support technology development, and private investors may view the need of digital companies to obtain such subsidies as a negative certification. Our findings inform policy by suggesting that the industrial domain may be an important boundary condition for the effectiveness of SBIR-type subsidies for university spinoffs.     

Intermediation in public procurement of innovation: How Amsterdam’s startup-in-residence programme connects startups to urban challenges

This paper analyses Amsterdam’s Startup-in-Residence (SiR) programme as new type of policy to engage startups in the development of urban innovation through a challenge-based public procurement of innovation (PPI) process. The programme is being mimicked by other cities and government agencies, but so far there has not been a rigorous, theoretically-informed analysis of the approach. In this paper, we specify and focus on the role of city-based, public-affiliated intermediaries as initiators, moderators and influencers of conversations between startups and the local government. The main contribution of SiR as a PPI intermediation programme has been to launch new types of fruitful conversations on several levels, that lead to institutional innovations rather than direct solutions for urban problems or startup development. In this sense, SiR fulfils a role inquiring and ascribing urban challenges with values and notions of “worth” that preceded and shaped innovation directions. We also suggest that engaging startups is effective for only a limited bandwidth urban challenges; different types of intermediation are required to foster collaborative innovation in more complex settings.