webmaster – Page 7 – Insight Foresight Institute

Mariana Mazzucato (IT/US)

Professor Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) holds the Chair in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value, University College London (UCL) where she is establishing a new Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (launching Autumn 2017). Mazzucato’s highly-acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (Anthem 2013; Public Affairs, 2015) was on the 2013 Books of the Year list of the Financial Times. She is winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy and the 2015 Hans-Matthöfer-Preis and in 2013 she was named as one of the 3 most important thinkers about innovation’ in the New Republic.

She has advised policy makers around the world on innovation-led growth and is currently a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors; the World Economic Forum’s Council on the Economics of Innovation and SITRA’s (Finnish Innovation Fund) Advisory Panel. Her current research projects include two funded by the EC Horizon 2020 programme: Innovation-fuelled, Sustainable, Inclusive Growth (ISIGrowth) and Distributed Global Financial Systems for Society (Dolfins) and a new project on Rethinking Medical Innovation by the Open Society Foundations. Her recent research includes projects funded by the Ford Foundation and the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and work commissioned by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Brazilian Ministry for Science and Technology.

She is co-editor of a new book Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth (Wiley Blackwell, July 2016), and is currently writing The Value of Everything, which will be published by Penguin’s Allen Lane in 2017.

Dan Breznitz (US/CA)

Dan Breznitz, is a Professor and Munk Chair of Innovation Studies, with a cross-appointment to the Department of Political Science. In addition, he is also Co-Director of the Innovation Policy Lab at the Munk School and the Director of Academic Research. Professor Breznitz is known worldwide as an expert on rapid-innovation-based industries and their globalization, as well as for his pioneering research on the distributional impact of innovation policies. He has been an advisor on science, technology, and innovation policies to multinational corporations, governments, and international organizations such as the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, TEKES, IFC, Fundación Chile, the United Nations, and the US-Israel Science and Technology Foundation. In 2001, he was awarded the GTRC 75th Anniversary Innovation Award for Public Service, Leadership, and Policy for this work. In 2008 Breznitz was selected as a Sloan Industry Studies Fellow.

Professor Breznitz’s first book, Innovation and the State: Political Choice and Strategies for Growth in Israel, Taiwan, and Ireland, won the 2008 Don K. Price for best book on science and technology. His second book (co-authored with Michael Murphree) The Run of the Red Queen: Government, Innovation, Globalization, and Economic Growth in China, was chosen as the 2012 Susan Strange Best Book in International Studies by the BSIA, and was featured in The Economist and the New York Times. Dan Breznitz’s new book, Third Globalization: Can Wealthy Nations Stay Rich? (co-edited with John Zysman), looks at the challenges and opportunities faced by Western economies in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the rapid changes in the global production system.

IFI Spring Statement on Innovation and Entrepreneurship

TO THE ATTENTION OF THE PRESIDENTS OF

EUROPEAN COUNCIL, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND EUROPEAN COMMISSION

This statement builds on the findings derived from the discussions involving High Level Advisory Board members of Insight Foresight Institute (IFI) on its regional, national and international activities, in particular the CEPS Task Force on ‘People, places and policies: Promoting systemic innovation and a stronger entrepreneurial culture in Europe’ of which results were presented recently in the European Parliament.

Evidence shows that apart from few top innovative regions, the Old Continent is lagging behind in innovation and entrepreneurship. While Europe has emerged as a major consumer of digital platform services, it has generated relatively few global platform companies and other breakthroughs. The cultural diversity of Europe entails great potential for innovation. However, releasing it requires overcoming market fragmentation and severe path dependencies both in business, policy and academia.

Empowering culture change for disruptive innovation

Innovation and entrepreneurship are ultimately about people. Whereas entrepreneurs drive new businesses and growth, intrapreneurs in business and institutions are just as important for the renewal of established firms and organisations. Not only engineers and scientists but also all sorts of professionals can champion innovation by bringing in social and user perspectives.

Crossing boundaries for vibrant ecosystems

Entrepreneurship is a contact sport that requires a supportive innovation ecosystem, able to encourage entrepreneurs and investors. Europeans need to take proactive stand in developing scale-up culture, digital economy and knowledge in action both in physical and virtual places.

Not only business and academic stakeholders, but also policy should thrive experimentation and learning. This requires strong, flexible and adaptive institutions at all levels of government and departing from favouring incumbent business models. Besides coordinating infrastructure deployment, orchestrating education efforts and funding basic research, public institutions should facilitate private sector efforts towards tackling societal challenges, taking a more prospective, systemic and transformative approach that crosses sector, disciplinary and geographical boundaries. EU institutions can also lead by example.

Streamlining governance structures for innovation in Europe

Considering that the EU Framework Programmes have contributed little to breakthrough innovations, the upcoming creation of the European Innovation Council (EIC) and the mid-term review of Horizon 2020, are important opportunities to adopt more effective and mission-oriented approaches. It is time to develop an overarching and forward-looking institutional framework with the necessary stability over the coming decades.

The EIC is welcome to the extent that it will become a real game changer: otherwise another EU agency dedicated to innovation would probably add to the current confusion and complexity. Further coordination of framework conditions and specific measures to accompany and nurture scale-ups are urgently needed. Even if the mandate is made narrow (scale-ups and breakthroughs), this does not mean that for every sub-goal of innovation policy there should be a corresponding EU agency.

There should be one major European platform for each societal challenge, with active cooperation across platforms. They could tackle proactively research and innovation in a multi-stakeholder fashion, engaging in forward looking agenda setting and incorporating also measures to address systematically the regulatory and market barriers. Ideally, these platforms would merge previous instruments. Indeed, societal challenges are a new terrain for European action where fragmentation can be avoided.

On the one hand, it is ever more urgent to ensure the right framework conditions for innovation namely by streamlining research and innovation investments and by unifying market and regulatory conditions across Europe. On the other hand, a business and investment logic is needed in delivering next generation policies.

IFI, a new-to-the-world ‘think and do tank’, encourages the European Commission, Parliament and Council to consider the above as part of the European semester and consider a paradigmatic shift for innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe.

In Madrid, June 2, 2016.

Kurt Deketelaere, Member of the IFI High Level Advisory Board

Ken Guy, Member of the IFI High Level Advisory Board

John Kao, Member of the IFI High Level Advisory Board

Ben Martin, Member of the IFI High Level Advisory Board

Charles Wesner, Member of the IFI High Level Advisory Board

José Manuel Leceta, Chairman

Totti Könnölä, Managing Director

Mario Mahr, Director of Strategy

Francisco Jariego, Director of Technology

Download the statement: IFI Spring Statement

Building Regional Foresight Capability in Chile

The co-founder of IFI, Totti Könnölä co-authored the European Foresight Platform brief on the foresight programme, of which overall objective was to enhance innovation-driven sustainable economic development of the Antofagasta region in Chile. The main purposes of the foresight
were to:

improve the foresight capability in the region, especially for the partner organisations,
enhance collaboration between the industry, government and research organisations and
support the creation of a strategic research agenda for the region on a topic chosen by the partner organisations.

Building Regional Foresight Capability in Chile (pdf)

People, Places & Policies: promoting systemic innovation and a stronger entrepreneurial culture in Europe

Innovation and entrepreneurship are key drivers for economic growth and competitiveness. While recent policies also aim at promoting sustainability and better governance, many analysts have pointed to Europe’s inability to create a suitable environment in which a vivid entrepreneurial culture could flourish.

The event, organised by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in partnership with the European Parliament, will be hosted by Eva Paunova MEP on 27th April 2016 at the European Parliament. The event intends to validate a new report from CEPS on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Europe: People, Places and Policies, the result of a six-month Task Force involving authoritative scholars, industry experts, entrepreneurs, practitioners and representatives of EU and international institutions.

Insight Foresight Institute (IFI) has played pertinent role in this taskforce chaired by José Manuel Leceta (Chairman of IFI). Furthermore, Totti Könnölä (Managing Director of IFI) has acted as a co-rapporteur. We highly appreciate that some of the board and council members have also participated in the taskforce meetings.

The outcome is a set of policy recommendations that aim at improving the overall environment and approach for entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe, and a new understanding of the role that “people, places and policies” can and should play within the current context of the European Union. More specifically, the CEPS Task Force agreed upon three key principles: future EU policy for entrepreneurship and innovation should be systemic, simple and, more importantly, tied to societal needs.

For full Agenda click here

Registration click here