Markku Sotarauta University of Tampere Research Unit for Urban and Regional Development Studies Regional Development Studies - Trends.

Markku SotarautaUniversity of Tampere

Research Unit for Urban and Regional Development Studies

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Regional Development Studies - Trends and Dimensions

FUTURREG Futures workshop 7.6.2006, Turku

Prof Markku SotarautaDirector of the Research Unit for Urban and Regional Development StudiesUniversity of Tampere

Regional development studies Trends and dimensions

Markku Sotarauta

In practice, this story focuses on the main observations of two projects, and hence on…

myths of universities’ role in regional development

learning processes in city development



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Richard K. Lester’s slides



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e.g. Cisco, Google, and Yahoo (all three of which grew out of Stanford University research and two of which took Stanford licenses)




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For example, the ten leading corporate patenters in the U.S. in 2004 each received more than 1300 patents in that year, compared with 135 and 132 for, respectively, Caltech and MIT, the two most prolific university campuses.




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Conclusions I

• Universities have multiple ways to contribute to local innovation processes directly

• In addition to their own discoveries, universities can help to attract new knowledge resources from elsewhere;

• they can help to adapt knowledge originating elsewhere to local conditions;

• they can help to integrate previously separate areas of technological activity in the region, and

• they can help to unlock and redirect knowledge that is already present in the region but not being put to productive use

(Lester 2005)



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Conclusions II

In most cases, the indirect support provided by universities for local innovation processes is likely to be more important than their direct contributions to local industry problem solving

• Education

• public space for ongoing conversations, involving local industry practitioners, about the future direction of technologies, markets and local industrial development

• The conversations between university and industry people that occur in these spaces are rarely about solving specific technical or commercial problems. But they often generate ideas that later become the focus of problemsolving both in industry and in universities

(Lester 2005)



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Conclusions III The conditions, practices, and attitudes that lead to successful

technology take-up and application in local industries depend on the specific characteristics of the industry and its development pathway

• Our studies make clear that industry upgrading, industry diversification, industry importation, and industry creation are each associated with different local patterns of technology take-up and application

Universities should approach their role in local innovation processes strategically

See more:• http://web.mit.edu/lis/

Lester, R. K. 2005. LIS Project - Phase I Findings: Overview and Discussion

• www.sotarauta.info Net Library



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City-Regions as Intelligent Territories: Inclusion, Competitiveness and Learning (Critical)

CRITICAL aims to examine the role of knowledge and learning networks in cities that are not the paradigmatic success stories

The team• Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, University

of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, Prof. David Charles• Chair of European Spatial Planning, University of Dortmund,

Germany, Prof. Klaus R. Kunzman • Employment Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland,

Prof. James Wickham • Sente - Research Unit for Urban and Regional Development

Studies, University of Tampere, Finland, Prof. Markku Sotarauta • School of Social Science and Planning, RMIT University,

Melbourne, Australia, Prof. Bruce Wilson

funded by the European Commission's 5th Framework Programme for Research and Development



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Some observations from team Tampere

Learning processes of a city-region are temporal in nature, governments are not

• Learning processes have their own life cycles, governments are stuck in their administrative cycles

Learning can take place effectively also in those local forums, arenas and communities that are not designated for explicit learning purposes

• Learning city is not a city with the explicit learning strategy and designated learning forums, but a city capable of exploring new frontiers, absorbing knowledge created elsewhere and capable of integrating new ideas into everyday activities – explicit learning strategy may help

Time pressure is among the worst enemies in developing something new, usually even more than funding

Aiming for governance, locked into government (structures, culture, etc.)



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Some observations from team Tampere

Is learning too often colonialized?

• It is a true challenge to maintain balance between an initial commitment and enthusiasm pushing new ideas and ventures forward and needed institutionalization (reification) to carry them out more effectively and to foster their wider diffusion

• The cases of the Critical -project suggest that the very birth, success and decay is strongly affected by this balance

• Space and ’gently’ support for bottom-up activities and initiatives are needed more than control from top-down

Policies to promote the ”learning city” should include also the encouragement of learning activities and cultures at the grass roots. However, public authorities do not traditionally have tools, skills, or courage, for these kind of purposes

Policy-makers ought to have a better 'touch' with different learning communities and arenas, their life cycle, potential and the real bottlenecks



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Learning process qualities

(Sotarauta & Linnamaa 1998)



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Evolving “social ecosystem” and policy-making

New development paths cannot easily be seen or planned - new industries and issues emerge quite spontaneously, due to chance events and increasing returns

Policy-makers are adapters rather than optimizers (Metcalfe 1994) or strategists, and they often pursue policy of trial-and-error.

Conventional wisdom: actors, resources and competencies (internal and external to region) should be mobilized and a new direction should be identified for learning, but how…



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Important issues in the early stages

Identity, feeling of belonging Shared way of knowing, inter-subjective understandings, shared patterns

of reasoning Shared normative and principled beliefs and thus value-based rational for

the social action of community members Shared commitment to collective learning process; the application and

production of knowledge Crossing various boundaries; disciplinary, departmental, organisational,

institutional et cetera Shared causal beliefs which are based on the understanding of the

community members what policy actions are needed to produce desired outcomes

Inter-subjective and internally defined criteria for weighing and validating knowledge in the domain of their expertise

(Wenger 1998)



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Markku Sotarauta University of Tampere Research Unit for Urban and Regional Development Studies Regional Development Studies - Trends.

Documents

dimensions markku sotarauta

city development slide

lesters slides slide

stanford university

prolific university

stanford licenses richard

redirect knowledge

myths of universities