Marc-Hubert Depret

Regional Policies, Key Levers of Regional Innovation Dynamics

Regions tend to become the relevant space for the analysis of public funding of innovation, as emphasised by numerous recent works. However, it is still to be demonstrated that the regional level is really the right spatial scaling for implementing innovation public policies. The aim of this paper is to provide a series of analytical and empirical elements that could help clarify this issue. The paper builds first on a review of the literature dedicated to territorial innovation systems (TIS), showing that beyond their extreme diversity, there are several criteria that provide a basis for a tentative typology of TIS. We then examine how and on which grounds there has been a shift of focus from the notion of National Innovation System (NIS) to that of Regional Innovation System (RIS). The paper also provides a rationale for considering the region as being at the core of TIS, but as part of a multiscalar and dynamic territorial setting. Building on these analytical grounds, the paper turns to an empirical investigation based on the French innovation system case. The specific features of this system and its recent evolution towards more regionalisation display particular patterns of how public policies, and more specifically regional policies, play a nodal role in initiating, supporting and coordinating innovation processes and projects at the regional level. But the leveraging effects of theses policies on territorial innovation dynamics are subject to various contingent conditions related both to the funding mechanisms mobilised and to the timing of the support to innovation projects according to their development stages. We conclude the paper by identifying some crucial pending issues and suggesting directions for further investigation on the role of regional innovation policies in various territorial and sectoral contexts.

Surveying the Literature on Territorial Innovation Systems: A Suggested Interpretation Framework

A very important stream of theoretical and empirical research has marked the literature on Territorial Innovation Systems (TIS) over the last twenty years. One key achievement of this research effort is the emphasis put on the structuring role of territorial dynamics in the deployment and spatial organisation of industries and innovation activities. However, this literature displays a large spectrum of rather heterogeneous conceptual and analytical approaches of TIS. This blurs the reading of the representations and interpretations of TIS that are proposed. This article aims at showing how the various approaches may be better put in perspective according to three key dimensions of TIS, i.e. respectively: their territorial anchorage; the degree of their openness and the scales involved; finally, their very foundational logics (market vs. network-oriented).

Pharmacie et biotech : l'ère des réseaux

Le developpement rapide des nouvelles biotechnologies, capables de produire des medicaments plus efficaces et a moindre cout, met les groupes pharmaceutiques au pied du mur : ils doivent multiplier les cooperations avec des partenaires du secteur biotech.

Vers une économie du génome

Resume Lere de la post-genomique sera synonyme dune course intense entre entreprises pour occuper les nouveaux marches qui se dessinent. Les mieux placees seront les premieres engagees et celles qui sauront faire fructifier leur appartenance a un reseau de collaborations.

The Co-Evolutionary Dynamics of Technological and Industrial Change in Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology (La dynamique co-evolutionnaire du changement technologique et industriel de la pharmacie et des biotechnologies)

This paper sketches a co-evolutionary model of the change dynamics characterizing industries submitted to radical transformation of their technological-institutional-economic structures. These structural changes take place within a (rather long-term) dynamics of innovation whose trajectory and inflection points are guided, temporally and spatially, by the interdependency, the embeddedness and the co-evolution of the technological, industrial and environmental factors specific to this industry. Firstly, we show how the environmental dimensions (particularly the spatial, institutional and financial ones) of the industry are closely and dynamically inter-related. Secondly, drawing from the Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology case, we examine how these dimensions co-evolve with the technological and industrial dynamics of the industry.

Regulation of Life Revolution: Spaces, Principles, Institutions (La regulation de la revolution du vivant: Espaces, principes, institutions)

No abstract available.

L'économie des «nouvelles biotech

Vingt ans apres leur avenement, les biotechnologies modernes affichent un bilan economique mitige. Leur potentiel, dans le domaine de la sante notamment, suffira-t-il a surmonter les obstacles qui freinent cette industrie naissante ?