Skip to main content

Science Parks and Innovation Districts – Evolution or bedfellows? (CIMR debates in Public Policy)

When: —
Venue: Online

Book your place

Join the Centre for Innovation Management Research on Wednesday 1 November 1-2pm for an online lunchtime seminar on Science Parks and Innovation Districts.  

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

Panel

Abstract 

At the recent World Congress of the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation, it was posited that innovation districts, with more of a focus on communities and the social fabric, made up for the failures of science parks. With an ‘introverted’ nature, tendency to ‘keep know-how’ to themselves, and located on the edge of cities, science parks are not in line with the way the next generation wants to live and work, it was claimed.

How accurate is this analysis? Are Innovation Districts an evolution of Science Parks or can these two forms of place-based innovation co-exist? And what changes need to be made to policy to allow innovation-driven economic growth in all regions?

Biographies 

Chair – Emma Palmer Foster, Birkbeck University of London

Emma Palmer Foster is a part-time MPhil/PhD student at Birkbeck Business School, 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.

Speaker – Stephen Cowan, Leader of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, White City Innovation District

Cllr Stephen Cowan has been the Leader of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) since 2014. Under his leadership, H&F has developed a national reputation for its bold approach to change. Stephen set up a ground-breaking industrial strategy partnership with Imperial College London (ICL) designed to make H&F a global hotspot in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, medicine and media (STEMMM) industries. Hammersmith & Fulham is the home of the White City Innovation District, clustered around Imperial College London’s White City Campus.

Dr Josep Miquel Piqué, President of Technova Barcelona – La Salle Innovation Park; President Triple Helix Association

Josep Miquel Pique is a Telecommunications Engineer from La Salle and UPC and MBA from ESADE. He is Doctor on Ecosystems of Innovation from Universitat Ramon Llull. He holds also diplomas from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California-Berkeley. Josep’s main interest is the promotion of Knowledge-based Economy and Society. He is a disciple of Professors Henry Etzkowitz (cofounder of Triple Helix), Francesc Solé Parellada (Entrepreneurship) and Jerome Engel (Clusters of Innovation), and has published several papers in publications and
congresses on Innovation Ecosystems.

Josep’s long professional experience in university management has lead him to promote and lead Postgraduate Programs, Technology Transfer Centers, University Incubators and Innovation Science and Technology Parks. In the field of public administration has been CEO of the District Innovation - 22 @ Barcelona, Director of Strategic Sectors of the Agency of Local Development - Barcelona Activa and CEO of the Office of Economic Growth of the Barcelona City Council.

He is Founding President of XPCAT (Catalan Network of Science Parks), Vice-President of APTE (Spanish Network of Science Parks), Former President of IASP (International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation), and President of the Triple Helix Association. He is expert of the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) of the European Commission and member of the Team of Specialists on Innovation and Competitiveness Policies of the United Nations Commission for Europe (UNECE).

Åsa Lindholm Dahlstrand, Professor of Innovation, University of Lund

Åsa joined CIRCLE, the Centre for Innovation Research at Lund University, as full professor in July 2011. At CIRCLE she is the research director for the platform “entrepreneurship and innovation”. She has an MSc in mechanical engineering from Chalmers (1986) and a PhD (1994) from the Department of Industrial Management and Economics, Chalmers. In 1999 she was appointed “docent” in Technology Management, Chalmers. Between 2000 and
2003 she was Head of the Department of Industrial Dynamics. She was a member of the management team (2004-2010) and Director (2008-2010) of RIDE, “R&D, Innovation and Dynamics of Economies”. In January 2005, she was appointed Professor in Business Administration, specializing in Entrepreneurship, at Halmstad University. She was appointed Visiting Professor at Chalmers from 2007 to 2010. In 2011 she was also appointed visiting Professor at Birkbeck, University of London. 

The overriding theme in her research is technology-based entrepreneurship and the linking of entrepreneurship and innovation. Her specific research interest includes studying new and small technology-based firms and the role of entrepreneurs in the development of companies and economies. She is very interested in both innovation policy and entrepreneurship policy. She is especially pursuing the research of acquisitions and spin-offs as various entrepreneurial forms of promoting innovativeness and growth. This includes analyzing technology-based spin-offs from different incubator systems, both universities and private firms.

Contact name: