Matthias Menter

Principal Investigators and the Commercialization of Knowledge

The commercialization of scientific knowledge is playing an increasingly important role within the scientific community and especially for universities worldwide. Since policy makers expect an economic payoff from academic research and universities are faced with declining spending from the public sector, taking on technology transfer constitutes a new major objective of academia. As principal investigators (PIs) embody a key role within this process, scholars develop a growing interest in the unique skill and task set of these scientists. Therefore, this chapter highlights the process of commercialization of scientific knowledge as well as the role and concept of PIs by summarizing the existing strand of literature. Those researchers simultaneously act as project managers, negotiators as well as boundary spanners who bridge the gap between academia and industry. Getting a deeper understanding of the motives of PIs is crucial to provide an efficient infrastructure and facilitate the creation of research avenues fostering industrial innovation.

The Role of Public Policy in Fostering Technology-Based Nascent Entrepreneurship

How public policy shapes and fosters technology based nascent entrepreneurship is one that is challenging for policy makers, supporting institutions, public and private sector actors. The chapter focuses on the impact of public policy on entrepreneurial activities in general and nascent entrepreneurship in specific, taking the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship and the associated assumption of entrepreneurial opportunities being endogenously induced by knowledge investments as a starting point. Taking clusters and high technology entrepreneurship the chapter uses the Leading Edge Cluster Competition in Germany to examine the role of public policy. The essential role of universities is highlighted in promoting nascent entrepreneurship not only in the private but also in the public sector in the context of the German Excellence Initiative as well as the wider implications for public policy are discussed.

The legacy and promise of Vannevar Bush: rethinking the model of innovation and the role of public policy

ABSTRACT The linear model of innovation argues that innovation takes place in a unidirectional sequence, with basic research directly diffusing in marketable product or process innovations. This perspective has served society well in past decades. However, recent productivity slowdowns in developed economies and the failure of innovation policies to continue to deliver desired results have called this perspective into question. Scholars explain these slowdowns by the oversimplification of the linear model which fails to consider the complexities associated with innovation processes. Although it is generally believed that Vannevar Bush’s report Science – The Endless Frontier – was based on his belief in a linear model of innovation and the notion that basic research is the ultimate source of all innovation, an examination of Bush’s writings and his life reveals that he believed in a more sophisticated model in which basic and applied research cross-fertilize each other and in which government’s job is not so much to stimulate basic research as it is to facilitate interactions between basic and applied research for the benefit of both and the prosperity of society. This paper explicates Bush’s model of the research and innovation process, explores the implications of that model, and derives policy recommendations.

Public cluster policy and neighboring regions: beggar-thy-neighbor?

ABSTRACT Research on public cluster policy has largely taken a perspective evaluating firm performance or local cluster performance, almost neglecting spillover effects on neighboring regions. This study evaluates the effects and performance of public cluster policy in three ways: firstly, by evaluating public cluster policy per se; secondly, whether positive effects are shaped as a consequence of the ‘picking-the-winner’ competition or by the subsidizing effects afterwards; and finally, whether effects of public cluster policy spill over to neighboring regions or are mainly bounded locally. Based on a unique panel dataset encompassing all German labor market regions and covering a 15-year period, we apply difference-in-difference estimations and quantile regression techniques to identify and separate the different effects. Our results confirm positive cluster effects of the chosen industries, but also show that positive externalities are spatially limited. Policy-makers should be aware of the local boundedness of public cluster initiatives and possible adverse ‘beggar-thy-neighbor’ effects.

Crime and Security in Europe and the US

National security issues are always raised after crimes have been committed which attract the attention of the public. Examples can be found manifold: jewelry theft during the international film festival in Cannes, cyber-attacks on bank accounts or tax fraud worth millions of dollars. All those criminal activities lead to the question why those crimes are conducted. The answer to this question seems simple: it pays off. This chapter focuses on the economic motives behind criminal activities as well as highlights three distinct types of crime: violent crime, white-collar crime, and organized crime. As all different crimes result from diverse intentions and are mainly conducted by different social classes, every single characteristic is discussed separately. Since crime is an international phenomenon which is not limited to national borders, security systems and their interconnectedness in Europe and the US are described and explained. Getting a deeper understanding of the motives and causes of crime is crucial to establish an effective judicial system which tries to minimize any kind of crime.