基于循证理性决策的英国公共科研管理案例研究——对英国研究理事会的独立审查

分析英国科研与创新发展面临的新形势,以英政府委托保罗.纳斯爵士牵头对英国研究理事会的独立审查为案例,剖析"互动式参与"方式下的审查实施过程和基于循证的决策建议,分析独立审查发现和获取的重要线索,研究审查建议对革新优化公共科研治理结构,推动资源整合、促进合作,拉近科研与决策距离的实现途径,总结英国公共科研管理改革新举措,提出对中国推进科技管理改革工作的启示。     

Knowledge to money: Assessing the business performance effects of publicly-funded R&D grants

UK Research Councils (UKRCs) spend around £3bn pa supporting R&D and innovation. We provide a comprehensive assessment of these grants on the performance of participating UK firms, using data on all projects funded by UKRCs over the 2004–2016 period and applying a propensity score matching approach. We exploit the richness of the data available in the Gateway to Research database by investigating the heterogeneous effect of these projects across several novel directions which have not been explored before. We find a positive effect on the employment and turnover growth of participating firms, both in the short and in the medium term. Exploring impacts across different types of firms we find stronger performance impacts for firms in R&D intensive industries and for smaller and less productive firms. We also consider how impacts vary depending on the characteristics of the funded research projects in terms of partners characteristics, receipt of other research grants and grant value. Finally, we focus on the different sources of grants, analysing in particular the evolution in the funding strategy of Innovate UK. Our results have implications for the extent and targeting of future Research Council funding both in the UK and elsewhere.     

国家创新组织运行的协同效应研究:基于创新英国的改革与实践

基于创新英国的运行与管理,构建国家创新组织的协同创新理论框架,分别从战略协同、知识协同和组织协同3个维度对创新英国的组织管理结构、运行模式和运行效果进行分析,研究创新英国作为国家型创新组织在创新体系中的协同作用,并结合创新英国运行管理的经验,从管理制度、创新工具和创新平台等角度,为我国创新组织的建设提出对策。     

美国新型类DARPA项目管理创新机构的若干进展及启示

在大国博弈的背景下,科技领域日益成为大国竞争的主战场和必争之地,新科技革命将重塑各国经济竞争力的消长和全球的竞争格局。美国为争夺竞争日趋激烈的科技制高点,借鉴至今活跃和取得众多科技创新成果的美国国防先进研究计划署（DARPA）的成功经验并进行模仿,积极谋划在健康、气候和基础设施等领域推动创建美国新项目管理创新机构——健康先进研究计划署（ARPA-H）、气候先进研究计划署（ARPA-C）和基础设施先进研究计划署（ARPA-I）,加快在新兴和前沿技术的布局,采取任务为导向的研发组织模式和高度灵活的管理模式,以取得重大颠覆性的突破来夺取技术优势,力图把握全球科技竞争主动权。文章简要概述3种新型类DARPA模式,并以先行先试的ARPA-H为例,对其成立的背景、使命和组织框架、运行机制、资助方向进行了介绍,并对新类DARPA管理创新进行总结以获得相应的启示,以期为我国科技创新和颠覆性技术项目管理提供政策建议。     

负责任创新框架下的人工智能伦理问题研究

负责任创新(RRI)旨在科学和技术创新过程中社会行动者和创新者彼此负责,同时会考虑创新过程中的伦理问题及创新产品的可接受性、可持续性和社会需求。其内涵分为行政定义和学术定义。在预期、反思、协商、反应、可持续性、关怀这6种负责任创新框架的基础上引入无私利性,基于负责任创新这7种框架理念解析人工智能技术发展带来的安全、隐私、结果等三方面主要伦理问题,探讨嵌入RRI框架来解决人工智能(AI)在产生、应用和发展等过程中滋生的伦理问题的路径,使AI技术更好地造福人类社会。     

大学与区域协同创新的组织模式研究：以德国“研究园计划”为例*

随着科学与技术创新范式的改变,区域化创新政策要求大学通过知识创新成为区域创新系统(RIS)的关键驱动力,同时也对传统的协同创新模式提出挑战.组织模式是协调组织与环境的重要工具,通过组织模式创新,可以使大学与区域更好地协同创新.基于此分析框架,对德国基于中长期科技发展战略、旨在推动大学与区域协同创新的“研究园计划”进行研究,可为我们建设国家创新系统、各具特色与优势的区域创新系统、实现创新驱动发展目标提供政策启示.     

负责任创新：实践与理论分析

大多数研究一直追求负责任创新趋善而行的普遍价值,而对责任理应更“宽”的框架讨论不足。在“新发展阶段”,理论界对负责任创新的重要命题,即谁对创新负责任、创新要对谁负责任以及负什么责任应准确认识。本文总结已有的研究和实践,构建了内含创新主体、价值主体、创新客体、创新理念和政策的机理框架,用以阐释负责任创新的理论逻辑。研究结论指出,应以国家战略的首位价值主体为导向,发展新的创新理念,促进负责任创新动力机制形成;建构由政府、党派、民众、用户和社区共同组成的创新生态系统;注重探索新型举国体制,充分发挥“有为”政府和“有效”市场的作用,推动企业社会责任观念和行动的转变;完善自主可控的创新链,形成大国间“均势”的创新安全新格局。     

Electricity sector liberalisation and innovation: An analysis of the UK's patenting activities

Liberalisation has had a marked effect on innovative activities in the electricity industry. In particular, electricity reforms have resulted in a reduction in R&D spending in the sector. R&D and patenting activities are respectively regarded as innovative inputs to and outputs from technological progress. The present paper examines the effect of the reforms on patenting activity in the UK electricity sector. The results indicate that electricity related patents in non-nuclear and renewable technologies have increased in the post-liberalisation period. We attribute this trend to the increased commercialisation of the sector. While this development is positive, we argue that a lasting decline in R&D will in the longer run reduce technological progress and innovation in the sector. In order to maintain the pace of innovation, we discuss the need to design a new framework for innovation systems that is commensurate with the functioning and incentive mechanisms of a liberalised sector.     

Innovative events: product launches,innovation and firm performance

In this paper, we shed new light on the links between firm-level innovation and growth. We introduce data that capture a difficult-to-observe aspect of firms' innovative activity – new product/service launches – at scale. We show that our novel measures complement existing innovation metrics. We build a simple framework covering firm-level innovation, launches and revenue productivity. Then, we show positive linkages between past patenting and launches and between launches and performance for a large panel of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. We go on to explore the roles of age, size, industry and product/service quality in these relationships. A subset of SMEs with high-quality launches explains our results.     

Intermediation and the role of intermediaries in innovation

This paper investigates the issue of intermediation and the role of intermediaries in the innovation process. The aim of this paper is three-fold. Firstly, to review and synthesis the literature in this field; from this to develop a typology and framework of the different roles and functions of the intermediation process within innovation; lastly to try and operationalise the typology within the context of UK using case study material.     

Profiting from technological innovation by others: The effect of competitor patenting on firm value

In 1986, Teece proposed a seminal framework for analyzing why innovators may fail to benefit from their innovations. He argued, in part, that firms with the requisite complementary assets can often expropriate an innovator's returns especially when appropriability regimes are weak. In this paper, we explore the implications of this framework from the perspective of an incumbent firm—more precisely, of investors in that firm—facing innovation by established corporate rivals and by inventors from outside its industry. We demonstrate that the financial-market value of publicly traded firms depends on patented innovation by competitors (both established rivals and industry outsiders). Our empirical study generates three main results. First, the financial-market value of an incumbent is negatively associated with “important” patenting by outside inventors. Second, in industries characterized by weak appropriability regimes or by a strong reliance on complementary assets, this relationship is reversed: important patenting by outsiders is positively associated with the incumbent's financial-market value. Third, the effect of outsiders’ patented innovation on the focal incumbent is qualitatively different than that of established rivals’ patented innovation on the incumbent. These results are consistent with implications of Teece [Teece, D., 1986. Profiting from Innovation, Research Policy] and with recently developed models that formalize elements of his framework. More generally, these results support theories about both the market-stealing and spillover effects of innovation.     

The timing of openness in a radical innovation project,a temporal and loose coupling perspective

We extend the Profit from Innovation (PFI) framework (Teece, 1986) by combining it with open innovation insights: we explore when and how managers make the transition between closed and open innovation, and how they use appropriation (formal and informal defense mechanisms) and project strategies to capture the value generated from the innovation at the project level. Based on a radical innovation project at Jaguar (UK), we contribute to a process and temporal perspective of open innovation by shedding light on two core project processes and their enabling mechanisms which influenced the ability of Jaguar to maximize profits from the innovation. The first core project process was the choice of timing of the shift from a closed to an open model of innovation: it was enabled by a pro-active change in the formal defense strategy (i.e. submission of a patent), and by an internal loose coupling project strategy that involved autonomy of the project champion and internal engineers’ weak membership in the project. The second core process was an external loose coupling project strategy that was enabled by the deployment of two complementary informal appropriation mechanisms namely, the reduction of the scope of tasks allocated to external partners combined with the development of guarded relationships with them.     

Critical capabilities for effective management of complementarity between product and process innovation: Cases from the food and drink industry

The management of the complementarity between product and process innovation has been discussed for five decades. The most recent advancement in the conceptual development uncovered different extents of complementarities occurring between product and process innovation at the project level. Prior literature suggested that facilitating a better interplay between these two types of innovation holds the potential for the development of a long-lasting competitive advantage. Despite its theoretical and managerial importance, management of new product and process development (NPPD) projects with different extents of complementarity between product and process innovation remains poorly understood. To address this gap, we adopt perspectives from contingency theory and dynamic capabilities. Building upon Hullova, Trott and Simms’s (2016) classification of complementarities we investigate the management of different complementarity types in four NPPD projects in the UK food and drink industry. We introduce empirically derived framework for effective management of NPPD projects with different extents of complementarity between product and process innovation. The framework identifies three critical capabilities and associated activities; 1) identifying the complexity and novelty of the project and assessment of internal and external resources and knowledge stocks, 2) deploying the most suitable integration mechanism(s) for the identified complementarity type and 3) leveraging of the knowledge learned and experience acquired during the project. Jointly, these three intertwined capabilities act as a complementarity management tool for product and process development managers, enabling them to manage their NPPD projects portfolios more effectively.     

Differential empirical innovation factors for Spain and the UK

This study considers the role of national differences, derived from structural characteristics in each country, and how they impact on companies’ innovation. To do this we include in a firm-level empirical model of innovation traditional factors impacting on innovation, and measure any differences in these determinants between two countries: the UK (comprising more advanced regions) and Spain (which belongs to the “follower” groups of countries in Europe). Using the European Community Innovation Surveys (CIS4), we select two samples comprising private manufacturing firms and estimate a two-step Heckman model to explain firms’ innovation. Our results suggest that Spanish firms are at a different stage, with Spain lagging behind the UK in terms of being able to benefit from R&D. Thus in Spain, we find that public support is more important in promoting innovation activities; whereas linkages with international markets are more important for companies in the UK. Based on our results, we would argue that in order to reduce the technological gap between these two countries regional policies to promote innovation in Spain should concentrate more on the promotion of market relationships between co-located firms; while a greater exposure to internationalisation would benefit both countries.     

Challenging the “deficit model” of innovation: Framing policy issues under the innovation imperative

As innovation is increasingly becoming an imperative for policymakers around the globe, there is a growing tendency to frame policy problems as problems of innovation. This logic suggests that we are unable to address grand societal challenges and ensure economic competitiveness because our societies, institutions, scientific activities or individual predispositions are not sufficiently geared towards innovation. In this paper, we analyze this “deficit model” of innovation in which a lack of innovation is routinely invoked as the main obstacle to social progress. Drawing parallels to research on the deficit model of public understanding of science (PUS), we develop a theoretical framework that captures the dynamics and normative implications of deficit construction, highlighting five salient dimensions: problem diagnoses, proposed remedies, the role of expertise, implied social orders, and measures of success. We apply this framework to three empirical case studies of recent innovation strategies in Luxembourg, Singapore, and Denmark. Attention to this deficit framing around innovation is important, we argue, because it is an essential part of how innovation transforms societies in the 21st century: not only through new technological possibilities or economic growth, but also by shaping public discourse, narrowing policy options, and legitimizing major institutional interventions. The implied pro-innovation bias tends to marginalize other rationales, values, and social functions that do not explicitly support innovation. It further delegates decisions about sweeping social reconfigurations to innovation experts, which raises questions of accountability and democratic governance. Experiences from the history of PUS suggest that, without a dedicated effort to transform innovation policy into a more democratic, inclusive, and explicitly political field, the present deficit logic and its technocratic overtones risks significant social and political conflict.     

Towards a holistic user innovation policy

This paper aims to synthesize previous user innovation policy proposals into an adapted system of innovation framework, on which a future holistic user innovation policy for the household sector can be based. We do this in three steps. First, we introduce the systems of innovation framework as a comprehensive basis for a holistic approach to innovation policy. Second, we identify and review policy proposals made by user innovation researchers and categorize them according to ten key activities in the systems of innovation framework. Third, from a system of innovation perspective, we synthesize the policy proposals identified into an adapted framework, including determinants specific to user innovation in the household sector. The synthesized proposals are intended to strengthen the systemic and multi-causal effects of policy on household sector user innovation in a country, region, or sector. Future policies for user innovation may, on this basis, be instrumental in avoiding mono-causality, or the concentration on only a few policy instruments in a proposed policy.     

The value of innovation: The interaction of competition, R&D and IP

This paper analyses market valuations of UK companies using a new data set of their R&D and IP activities (1989-2002). In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the sectoral-level, where the sectors are based on the technological classification originating from Pavitt [Pavitt, K., 1984. Sectoral patterns of technical change. Research Policy 13, 343-373]. The first main result is that the valuation of R&D varies substantially across these sectors. Another important result is that, on average, firms that receive only UK patents tend to have no significant market premium. In direct contrast, patenting through the European Patent Office does raise market value, as does the registration of trade marks in the UK for most sectors. To explore these variations the paper links competitive conditions with the market valuation of innovation. Using profit persistence as a measure of competitive pressure, we find that the sectors that are the most competitive have the lowest market valuation of R&D. Furthermore, within the most competitive sector (‘science based’ manufacturing), firms with larger market shares (an inverse indicator of competitive pressure) also have higher R&D valuations, as well as some positive return to UK patents. We conclude that this evidence supports Schumpeter by finding higher returns to innovation in less than fully competitive markets and contradicts Arrow [Arrow, K., 1962. Economic welfare and the allocation of resources for invention. In: Nelson, R. (Ed.), The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity. Princeton University Press, Princeton], who argued that, with the existence of IP rights, competitive market structure provides higher incentives to innovate.     

促进产学合作政策工具:英、美与中国比较研究

随着社会经济的发展,如何充分运用大学产生的知识基础,以促进产业创新与经济竞争力,成为当今政府的当务之急,而产学合作也成为创新政策工具中最主要的一环。本文针对各国政府所推动的各项产学合作方案,分析其对体制上、合作动机、合作障碍、合作机制运用的影响与实施成果。以个案研讨的方式,比较分析英国、美国产学合作的各项政策工具与方案的成效,并对我国的产学研合作政策提出相关建议。