This dissertation undertakes to cast a new and discerning eye on the continuing enigma of Canadian federal innovation policy. Towards that end the dissertation employs the Developmental Network State (DNS) framework and pursues the question of whether the DNS can be used to explain why Canada - and specifically federal innovation policy since 2000 - has seemingly been unable to increase national Research and Development investments and positively impact Canada’s rate of innovation. Theoretically the dissertation argues that the DNS framework can be used to mend the gap between National Innovation Systems literature with its proclivity for an undertheorization of the state and historical institutionalism, which while robustly conceptualizing the state, has been less engaged with the innovation problématique. While admittedly including some modest conceptual sharpening of the framework, the argument draws on four key pillars of the DNS: policy durability over time; targeted resourcing that can enable innovation; thickening of triadic networks among business, academe and government and incentives for capitalization. The research methodology encompasses both qualitative and quantitative (particularly in the sense of economic) techniques and includes 54 in-depth interviews conducted with innovation leaders across the nation. With respect to the evidence assembled around the health of the Canadian innovation system, OECD indicators over the period of the 2000s generally show deteriorating trends, although investment in Higher Education R&D (HERD) is very much the stalwart exception. As for the four lines of inquiry investigated regarding federal policy, the issue of policy durability in large part reveals an increasing number of priorities overlaid at times with exceedingly ambitious objectives and the ongoing challenge of fashioning a more enduring federal strategy. As for targeted resourcing, while federal investments have been both sustained and substantive and while there has been particular attention to macroeconomic stability and research infrastructure, there has been a continuing pattern of oscillation between a focus on research and one on commercialization. With respect to triadic thickening of networks, the evidence continues to reveal the relatively shallow nature of collaboration - this despite robust funding, institutional mechanisms for networking and an ongoing priority on this issue by government. Here again however business financing of HERD stands out as the exception. In contrast, on incentives for capitalization there has been significant progress, although access to late-stage capital remains a challenge. Additionally, the study undertakes an examination of two sectors - Artificial Intelligence (AI) and pharmaceutical manufacturing, employing a “quasi-experimental” technique that examines impacts of policy initiatives over a period that dates back to 1987. In the case of AI, the enabling conditions of DNS do coalesce to form a robust innovation ecosystem. In the case of pharma, policy efforts have not been so sustained or holistic and innovation indicators duly tell this tale of deteriorating trends. In sum, what emerges is that federal innovation policy in the Canadian context has developed in rather truncated form - and it has tracked within the confines of more historically adept and enduring strategies such as upstream Research and Development and fiscal policy. Indeed, the pillars of the DNS framework serve to illuminate the dissonance between policy intent and impact, highlighting the unique nature of federal innovation policies as they have endeavoured to establish the agendas, funding, networks and capital that can provide a formula for advancing Canada on this front. This case study also suggests that the DNS itself may need honing - specifically that policy durability is not only a sufficient condition for innovation but in fact an anchoring one enabling other dimensions to follow suit.

Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3) has recently attracted the attention of many scholars, pundits and policy makers involved in regional studies, as a new industrial policy able to fill the gap between the weak capacity of Europe to innovate in comparison to its strong academic base and research institutions. S3 is described as a policy aimed to encourage structural changes, through the generation of new domains of opportunities, according to the strengths and potentialities of each region and therefore with a “place-based” outlook. Its primary element of novelty, in comparison to the previous policy approaches, is constituted by the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP), which represents the modality among institutions, firms, R&D centres, universities, through which the direction(s) of the structural change is organised. To study S3, this Ph.D. thesis focuses on two pillars considered central to understand its rationales: relatedness and entrepreneurship. On one hand, the idea of relatedness is useful to understand the economic structure of a territory and its evolution through its network of connections, outlining possible areas of future development. On the other hand, entrepreneurship, somehow a missing dimension of S3, can be considered as part of the process of opportunity scanning to “challenge” inefficiencies of the society through new models of production and consumption, proactiveness of institutions, business development strategies of firms or cultural mindset of people. The aim of the thesis is to explore this relatedness-entrepreneurship relationship within S3, using a multi-level framework of analysis able to integrate the different aspects of the two concepts, providing theoretical and empirical advancements. The thesis is structured as follows: a general introduction on S3, three papers, which analyse Italy, focusing on the case of Tuscany and some final conclusions that sum up the findings of the papers and provide some further policy insights. The content of the three papers is reported hereinafter. In the first paper the analysis is conducted in the Italian provinces defining entrepreneurship as the creation of a new business and relatedness as one of the principal mechanisms that could explain the origin of innovation in connection with a given territorial knowledge base. The distinctiveness of this first paper seeds in the study of this relationship across individual industries, computing separate measures of external and internal relatedness across 27 sectors (among manufacturing and KIBS). The results suggest a broader and positive impact of external relatedness on the concentration of new firms at the territorial level in comparison to the impact of internal relatedness. The implications suggest that Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship can be included in the cognitive framework of S3 (newborns as expression of knowledge exchanged at the local level) and that innovation policies aimed to promote path creation should consider existent strengths of the territories. The second paper studies the EDP, integrating the concept of relatedness, useful in the initial phases of design and scoping, with the one of institutional entrepreneurship as an expression of the impact of agency in the micro-dynamics that rule the final outcome of innovation policies. This framework is applied to the case of Tuscany, using a mixed methodology. As a first picture of proximity connections between sectors of Tuscany, an original computation of the “Industry Space” of Tuscany is realised (using the methodology of Hidalgo et al., 2007). Then the Technological Districts’ managers and/or coordinators are interviewed, as a sort of fact checking with the Industry Space results, to understand how they define their planning strategies and through which mechanisms they integrate knowledge and combine firms and R&D specialities. Results confirm the necessity to integrate the two concepts to obtain a more realistic “policy orientation map”, and the broader horizon released by relatedness if deeply analysed with case studies at a micro-level and if directly discussed with some central agents embedded in the regional network of proximities. The third paper studies the entrepreneurial styles (as real business men) and their ways of integrating and combining knowledge, adopting a micro interpretation on the concept of relatedness. The paper aims to identify what role can play these entrepreneurial figures as fundamental “micro pieces” in the scanning process of future opportunities of regional transformation promoted by S3. The methodology adopts a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews administered to a selected set of 24 entrepreneurs in Tuscany. The sample of the entrepreneurs, selected with a purposeful criterion, has been built thanks to the help of key informants. The gathered data are codified with the help of Gioia methodology, in order to derive some characteristics of the entrepreneur and the firms to describe some “emerging properties”. Then, a ladder of entrepreneurial typologies, able to group the specific characteristics derived from the interviews, is proposed. Results suggest a “distributed technology transfer model” as a complementary bottom up strategy to converge towards a new cyber-manufacturing regime of production.

University-firm collaboration has been regarded as central to the innovation performance of firms and, at aggregate level, of countries. These linkages have been widely promoted as part of innovation policy in many countries. However, there are no conclusive studies of the dynamics of these interactions in developing countries and most of the research on the topic has focused on one side of a two-sided interaction. This gap in our understanding is particularly relevant in the case of developing countries since their innovation systems are 'immature.' This thesis attempts to explain how multi-level factors shape the incentives for agents to engage in collaboration. The analysis reveals conflicting incentives on both sides of university-firm interactions. The productive and institutional environment, as well as the public policy under which academics, universities, and firms operate, create, often unintended, incentives both for and against collaboration. Increasing understanding of these interactions helps to align policy design. By studying university-firm collaboration in Chile, this thesis aims at advancing scholarship in four key ways: (i) by studying university-firm linkages in a developing country that possesses comparative advantages in natural resources; (ii) by incorporating management and innovation theories in the study of innovation incentives, which, until recently, have only been studied using market failure analysis in developing country settings; (iii) by using a novel analytical approach that combines the analysis of the supply and demand sides of these linkages, while also incorporating the multi-level factors influencing them; and (iv) by assessing the impact of university-firm collaboration on the innovation performance of a sample of Chilean firms using a novel dataset specially prepared for this thesis. This quantitative analysis provides valuable insight about the type of firms that benefit from collaboration with universities and about the type of innovations activities that produce these benefits.

科技競爭力是經濟持續成長的動力，而政府、企業與國家之整體科技能量為發展科技經濟的重要支柱。於全球科技經濟的持續發展之下，研發（R&D）的投入、創新（Innovation）的擴散，並逐漸在以知識（Knowledge）作為競爭基礎的全球化社會與網際網路時代中日益重要，而在此趨勢之下，企業除了應積極規劃產業轉型，政府創新政策（Innovation Policy）的支持更是不可或缺的條件，各國家莫不體認到「創新能力」是現代國家競爭力的重要關鍵。 美國在甘乃迪總統時代，便將「創新政策（Innovation Policy）」視為政府產業科技政策中非常重要的一環，其目的在獎勵新興產業中之科技創新，因其能符合國家的需求及達到改善經濟情勢的目標，但由於私人企業的資源有限，無法在有限的時間及預算內開發出符合社會大眾需求的產品。所以，甘乃迪主張政府應負責主導產業科技創新發展的方向，同時政府應提供企業界財力及其它資源上的補助。 創新相關的概念逐步發展，到晚近十多年，西歐幾個國家包括丹麥、瑞典和英國的產業經濟與政策研究學者，開始提倡「國家創新系統（National Innovation System）」的概念。過去，人們直接將科學系統（Science system）視為唯一的創新指標（Innovation indicator），科學投入（Science input，如R&D預算）的增加直接助長創新及科技的發展。這個以科技推力為主的簡單線性關係模型的觀念已被「系統式模式（Systemic approaches）」所取代。 亦即創新為研究、發展、行銷、擴散（Research, development, marketing, diffusion）每一階段交互作用的成果，而非單單是R&D的投入面而已，也就是說創新活動來自創新系統（Innovation system）中每一成員（如政府、大學、私人企業）及每一步驟（研究、發展、行銷、擴散）的交互作用等，而不只是學術界與R&D的事而已。 歐州近年來針對創新政策相關議題多所著墨，而自2000年開始，荷蘭、比利時是歐洲中於國家競爭力上有卓越表現的國家，而基於版圖規模和經濟特質，在科技產業之推動與創新政策之發展上，以上各國顯然有許多值得臺灣借鏡與學習的地方，本研究期望對荷蘭、比利時二國創新政策做深入淺出的剖析，並以國家創新系統為依歸，歸納出對正努力邁向知識密集、附加價值的臺灣一個值得參考之啟示與學習典範。 / Technological competitive strength is the power for the continuous growth of the economy. And the technological power of the government, enterprises and the country is the critical mainstay of the development of technological economy. Under the continuous development of the world economy, the investment on R&D and the spread of innovation become more important in the competition with the knowledge base in the global world and internet era. Under this trend, besides planning the transform of the products, the enterprise needs the government's Innovation Policy as a necessary factor. All the countries realize that Innovation is the key to the modern nations' competitive strength. During the Kennedy period, the U.S. regards Innovation Policy as a most important part of the government's high-technology industry. The aim is to encourage the technological innovation in the new industry, because it conforms to the country's needs and may improve the economic condition. However, as the private enterprises have limited power and cannot produce the products conforming with people's needs during a time limit. Therefore, Kennedy advocates that government should be responsible to lead the industrial technology, and provides some monetary and other aids. Concepts relating to innovation are gradually developing. In the recent ten years, theory studying scholars from western European countries, including Denmark, Sweden and U.K., begin to advocate National Innovation System. In the past, people regard Science system as the only Innovation indicator, thinking that the growth of Science input will directly foster innovation and the development of technology. This simple linar model has already been replaced by Systemic approaches; that is, innovation is not the result by R&D but the result of the co-operation of research, development, marketing, diffusion. It can also be interpreted that innovation comes from every single member (such as the government, university, private enterprise) and every step, not just the academic circles and R&D. In the recent years, Europe has a lot of works on innovation policy. Since 2000, Netherlands and Belgium are marvelous countries. As for the domain size and the economy quality, Taiwan needs to learn from the above countries on the development of technology industry and innovation policy. The research expects deep analysis on the innovation policies of this three countries; in the meantime, arranges a valuable example for Taiwan on the way to knowledge-intensive and value added.

O objetivo deste trabalho é contribuir para literatura empírica que avalia o impacto dos incentivos públicos à pesquisa e desenvolvimento (P&D) com dados de firmas brasileiras. Em particular foi avaliado o impacto da Lei do Bem, instrumento de incentivo fiscal à atividade de pesquisa e desenvolvimento privado. Essa avaliação foi conduzida a partir de estimações de modelos econométricos com microdados de empresas industriais brasileiras. Foi aplicado a técnica de matching e realizadas estimações de modelos empíricos de investimento com dados em painel. O impacto foi avaliado considerando toda amostra de empresas industriais e por intensidade tecnológica, adicionalmente foi analisado o efeito de dosagem. Os resultados trazem evidências que existe impacto positivo no dispêndio em P&D nas firmas, rejeitando a hipótese de crowding-out. / The objective of this work is to contribute to the empirical literature that evaluates the effectiveness of public support on private R&D with Brazilian firms data. In particular was evaluated an instrument of fiscal incentive called ,,Lei do Bem\". The evaluation was conducted applying econometric approach using microdata of industrial firms. A matching was conducted and estimated empirical investment equation with panel data. The effect was evaluated in full sample and dividing by technological intensity, the dosage effect was also considered. The results indicate a positive impact on the expenditure in R&D, rejecting the crowding-out hypothesis.

Industries and regional economies evolve as a result of the interplay between local and non-local factors. Increasing globalization of both production- and innovation activities implies a shift in the relevant scales of interaction from the local towards the global level. This paper is concerned with the implications of such scale shifts for the role of the region and for cluster-related regional policies. It examines what is left of the role of regional settings in fostering economic development when extra-regional drivers of change increase in importance. We investigate this crucial question with two in-depth case studies of the medical technologies sector, in which such scale shifts have been particularly pronounced. Our findings from empirical material collected in Scania/Sweden and Vienna/Austria illustrate the ways in which changes in national and supra-national regulatory frameworks have had a profound impact on the innovation activities of individual firms and the way to develop and launch new products, and subsequently on the regions in which they cluster. Such scale-shifts have on the one hand limited the potential for regional policy to shape the cluster's path through support for supply-side factors. Yet some critical assets remain local but are increasingly difficult to access. By addressing such barriers to access, regional policy can still strongly affect the opportunities for innovation. Furthermore, in an increasingly open industry system, we see an expanded role for regional policy in supporting firms to access critical assets and sources of innovation found external to the region.

O papel da inovação tecnológica no processo de crescimento econômico tem sido enfatizado pela teoria econômica desde Adam Smith, Karl Marx e Joseph Schumpeter, sendo trazido de volta ao debate pelas contribuições das teorias evolucionárias neo-schumpeteriana e institucionalista. De tal maneira que no período recente construiu-se a noção de que para fomentar o crescimento econômico seria necessário que o Estado implementasse políticas públicas a fim de estimular a inovação tecnológica. Estas políticas, por sua vez, podem assumir diferentes formas, onde os modelos mais difundidos são o linear e o sistêmico. Como o primeiro modelo define etapas a serem seguidas, assim como metas claras, elevação dos gastos em P&D, ele se difundiu e influenciou a construção de políticas de inovação ao redor do mundo. Neste sentido, durante os anos de 1995 a 2012, o Estado brasileiro construiu um aparato institucional e pôs em marcha um conjunto de políticas de inovação a fim de reduzir a brecha existente entre a indústria local e dos países desenvolvidos. Sem embargo, a despeito do esforço empreendido a política de inovação nacional não foi capaz de mudar a estrutura produtiva brasileira. Destarte, o objetivo desta tese é analisar, a partir de uma ótica evolucionária, a natureza da política de inovação praticada no Brasil entre os anos de 1995 e 2012, e com isso tentar compreender o porquê de ela não ter sido capaz de impulsionar o desenvolvimento tecnológico do País. Argumenta-se que isso se deu por a política de inovação ter enraizado em seu cerne o modelo linear de inovação, causando, consequentemente uma trajetória dependente difícil de ser alterada. Esse enraizamento se dá não só dentro do Estado, mas também nos hábitos de pensamento do grande empresariado industrial, que entende a instrumentalização da política de inovação por uma lógica linear, enfatizando meramente gastos em P&D. Como esse grupo teve ao longo dos últimos anos influência na construção da política de inovação nacional, a partir da atuação de lideranças empresariais e de entidades representativas interagindo com o Estado, esse hábito de pensamento acabou por se refletir na construção da política de inovação. / The role of technological innovation in the process of economic growth has been emphasized by economic theory since Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Joseph Schumpeter, and brought back to the debate by the contributions of neo-Schumpeterian and institutionalist evolutionary theories. In such a way that in the recent period was constructed the notion that to foment the economic growth would be necessary that the State implemented public policies in order to stimulate the technological innovation. These policies, in turn, can take different forms, where the most widespread models are linear and systemic. As the first model outlines steps to be followed, as well as clear goals, R & D spending increases, it has spread and influenced the construction of innovation policies around the world. In this sense, during the years 1995 to 2012, the Brazilian State built an institutional apparatus and implemented a set of innovation policies in order to reduce the gap between local industry and developed countries. However, despite the effort made, the national innovation policy was not able to change the Brazilian productive structure. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to analyze, from an evolutionary perspective, the nature of the innovation policy practiced in Brazil between 1995 and 2012, and with that to try to understand why it was not able to drive the development The country. It is argued that this was because innovation policy has rooted at its core the linear model of innovation, causing, consequently, a dependent trajectory difficult to be altered. This rooting occurs not only within the State, but also in the thinking habits of the large industrial entrepreneurs, who understand the instrumentalization of innovation policy by a linear logic, emphasizing merely R&D expenditures. As this group has influenced the construction of national innovation policy in recent years, based on the performance of business leaders and representative entities interacting with the State, this habit of thinking ends up being reflected in the construction of innovation policy.

The main objective of this thesis has been to answer the question, whether the cluster policy in the Moravian-Silesian Region is a proper part of the regional innovation policy and whether it is properly targeted within the context of the regional innovation policy. In other words whether there is an impact of cluster policy on research, development and innovation, or vice-versa on the fields that can eventually be considered harmful to the fair competition (e.g. activity of the cluster organisations in the field of joint procurement and enforcing of joint interests); and further whether the cluster policy measures contribute rather to dissolving of innovation barriers caused by lack of contact with the other companies and institutions (e.g. missing cooperation partner, low level of trust, missing technical equipment, missing know-how), or to dissolving innovation barriers which should be targeted by other means of the innovation policy (e.g. problems with financing of the innovation projects). An attempt to answer the questions was made in a survey among the members of the Moravian-Silesian cluster organisations. The results of the survey have confirmed the assumption, that the members of the cluster organisations see the activities in the field of networking and information and research, development and innovation as the most beneficial and that they have experienced the highest improvement in dissolving the following innovation barriers: missing cooperation partner, missing business related know-how and low level of trust. However, after a thorough analysis of the policy system and conduction of several structured interviews with the cluster managers, doubts concerning the impact on the "natural" clusters were stated. Based on these findings the further cluster promotion at the national and regional level proves to be eligible, but further research is necessary to examine, whether the activities of the cluster organisations really promote the "natural" clusters, what impact on the innovativeness and competitiveness they bring and whether the promotion is economically efficient.

Taiwan's small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role to promote economic development. White paper on small and medium enterprises in Taiwan, 2004 indicated SMEs¡¦ numbers is 97.83% of whole industry. So SMEs is the main force in Taiwn¡¦s industry. According to National Science Council review SMEs in Taiwan engage in R¡®D activities facing the captial and technological barriers, and the percentage that accept government subsidy is 13%(National Science Council, 2000). The Deptartment of Industrial Technology (DOIT) of Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), launched Taiwan's SBIR promoting program, mostly referred to the SBIR US version, in 1999 in order to encourage local start-up companies pursuing innovative research of industrial technologies and products. Rothwell & Zegveld (1982) research government innovation policy include technology and industry policy, classify three composes:Supply, Demand, and Environmential policy. In government R&D subsidy policy system can be distinguished to R&D procurement(Demand) and directive subsidy(Supply). The study compare to other country¡¦s R&D subsidy policy and refer to business technology strategy. The study uses the interview method to analyze the policy awareness of SMEs and confer the policy influence of SBIR subsidy policy. So far as bring up the suggestion of government R&D subsidy policy. Through interview analysis, SMEs represent in the beginning of R&D activities always face capital shortage and need technological assistance. The study propose government carry out R&D subsidy should replace monitoring control for concilling system. Government can match up national industry development way to alliance industry engage in specific R&D activity by government R&D subsidy policy. To sum up government can weighted the Demand and Supply side innovation policy to cooperate R&D subsidy policy system. So that government R&D subsidy policy can look after both side by stimulating SMEs innovation generality and promote national technology level to reach the full-scale policy achievements.

Asian countries imitate the success of Taiwan IC industry, especially Mainland China. Therefore, it is compared between Mainland China and Taiwan to discover the differences and similarities in my thesis. National innovation systems are divided into national industry innovation policies and industrial innovation systems; the former is composed of the history of IC industry, technical policies and industrial policies. And the latter is composed of the resources of technical people, industrial gatherings, research institutions, technical resource and transference. Finally, there are three points in my conclusion. First, the use of industrial policies and the portal model of foreign businessmen are similar. But they, for instance, the period of IC technology enlightenment, the early timing and importance of technology policies, the used way of industry policy, the way of technological transference, scientific research institutions and the local Fabs, are different. Second, their IC design industry is driven by Foundry. It occurs the special division of industry. And the development of their IC industry is driven by demand market in itself. The last, many 8 inches Fabs are built.