F. Jiménez-Sáez

What indicators do (or do not) tell us about Regional Innovation Systems

This paper analyses some of the methodologies and R&D and innovation indicators used to measure Regional Innovative Capacity in Spain for the period 1996–2000. The results suggest that the approaches examined are not sufficiently rigorous; they vary depending on the methodology and indicators employed.Therefore, we would suggest that the right balance between quantitative and qualitative approaches could produce a better evaluation of innovation system performance which would be more useful to policy makers and other stakeholders.

Evaluating European Regional Innovation Strategies

In this paper we analyse the degree of achievement of the Regional Innovation Strategy goals. This is an European Union Commission policy oriented toward the promotion of regional Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policy design through the involvement of regional stakeholders. We analyse two categories of objectives: those dealing with process participation and those dealing with behavioural change. Our results show that the overall achievement of the goals is meaningful: the former have been achieved in a larger extent than the latter ones. However, other aspects such as multidisciplinary, and the establishment of a monitoring and evaluation system have not been so fruitful.

Science And Technology Policies: A Tale Of Political Use, Misuse And Abuse Of Traditional R&D Indicators

Future political priorities for science and technology (S&T) policy formulation usually rest on a rather simplistic interpretation of past events. This can lead to serious errors and distortions and can negatively affect the innovation system. In this article we try to highlight the riskiness involved in policy making based on traditional R&D indicators and trends. We would emphasise that this approach does not take account of structural aspects crucial for the analysis of the innovation system. We examine the implications for science, technical and human resources policies of the political challenge of R&D convergence in a peripheral EU region. Three scenarios are developed based on application of the same criteria to the trends observed in traditional R&D input indicators.

Benchmarking Innovation in the Valencian Community

Benchmarking on innovation policies allows less developed territories to adjust their learning processes along with the experiences of others. There are successful territories in Europe where innovation policies have become key to their development, but there are others where this is not the case, as in most Spanish regions. The purpose of this article is to benchmark the Valencian Innovation System, at three levels of analysis: (a) Spanish; (b) Mediterranean; and (c) European regions. Our results highlight its main strengths and weaknesses, which are indicative of the deficiencies in the Valencian industrial structure and the difficulties involved in absorbing newly qualified, highly educated people. The Valencian Community shows relative strengths in those aspects related to public funding while its weaknesses are related to private activities. This structural imbalance drives us to categorize the Valencian Innovation System as weak, unarticulated and unbalanced, which makes us question the real existence of a regional innovation system in the Valencian Community.We consider that support from the regional government should be oriented first towards the definition of some common consensus-based targets in which the main actors are involved. Then second, entrepreneurial activities should be fostered, which may link the existing industrial structure to the public research system in the region. Third, a structural change should be promoted in Valencian universities, with greater emphasis on cooperation with regional firms, and knowledge transfer to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) so as to increase their competitiveness.

Innovation systems in motion: an early music case

Purpose – This study aims to provide an in‐depth understanding of the innovation system and the learning processes involved in a very specific cultural field: the production of early music.Design/methodology/approach – A single case study of the generic value chain in the music production industry describes and analyses the process and the actors involved in editing a new early music collection resulting from the collaboration between a record company and a public research organization.Findings – There is a need for new knowledge in the various stages of performance and publication of a new recording. The early music sector is a knowledge‐intensive, science‐driven sector that can be characterized as a system because the interactions among actors substantially influence final products.Research limitations/implications – The single case study represents a specific sector within the music industry. However, its conclusions can be applied to other fields in the cultural heritage sector.Originality/value – The...

Who leads research productivity growth? Guidelines for R&D policy-makers

This paper evaluates to what extent policy-makers have been able to promote the creation and consolidation of comprehensive research groups that contribute to the implementation of a successful innovation system. Malmquist productivity indices are applied in the case of the Spanish Food Technology Program, finding that a large size and a comprehensive multi-dimensional research output are the key features of the leading groups exhibiting high efficiency and productivity levels. While identifying these groups as benchmarks, we conclude that the financial grants allocated by the program, typically aimed at small-sized and partially oriented research groups, have not succeeded in reorienting them in time so as to overcome their limitations. We suggest that this methodology offers relevant conclusions to policy evaluation methods, helping policy-makers to readapt and reorient policies and their associated means, most notably resource allocation (financial schemes), to better respond to the actual needs of research groups in their search for excellence (micro-level perspective), and to adapt future policy design to the achievement of medium-long term policy objectives (meso and macro-level).

Entrepreneurial-innovative university services: A way to integrate in the university's third mission

The so-called ‘Third Mission’ of the university is under debate for the last 20–30 years (Laredo, 2007) and this mission has received a wide variety of interpretations. In this chapter we adhere to execution of activities that contribute to the economic and social development of its territory. This new idea of the university as an entrepreneurial one requires a reorientation of its strategy to cope with the challenges imposed by its new task towards society. In this sense, the Entrepreneurship Support Programmes (ESPs), as university services, are a central element in the fulfilment of the aims and objectives of any entrepreneurial university, as those that combine and integrate the traditional activities of education and research with the contribution to the economic and social development (Etzkowitz, 1998; Goddard, 1998). The ESP services consist, for example, of programmes that promote entrepreneurship in all the fields; they support the creation of new innovative companies with a scientific or technologic base; they support the development of university spin-off and training related to the creation and management of companies; and they promote university–company relationship and interaction between other factors (Arroyo-Vazquez & van der Sijde, 2008). The reorientation of the strategy of the university into an entrepreneurial one involves also a strategy with regard to the universitys ‘entrepreneurial’ services, which have to adapt to the new demands and needs of the universitys ‘new’ users, entrepreneurs and companies as well as university staff members.

Leadership and Negotiation for Project Management

This chapter deals with two main subjects which are dealt in two parts (a) Part one, Project Manager qualities or competencies and (b) Part two, Negotiations and contracting. The first one relates with leadership, that is the ability to manage the most important assets a company has, people.