Mission critical: the ends, means, and design of innovation agencies

Abstract

How should governments design public innovation agencies to accommodate the challenges of rapid technological and economic change? In this article, we argue that innovation agencies can approach innovation in very different ways. We develop a typology of innovation agencies, using eight agencies from around the world to identify distinctive patterns of learning, adjustment, and experimentation. In doing so, we demonstrate that the effective design of innovation agencies depends heavily on their mission and the specific ends they seek to pursue.

Public and private goods in the development of additive manufacturing capacity

“… 4 The decentralized approach to technology development could also be said to include the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), the most significant source of direct assistance for Canadian business across sectors (Breznitz and Samford (2017)). …”

“…Instead we use this heuristic to illustrate the notion that there is often a gap in applied research, where SMEs in particular face constant challenges to obtaining, understanding, and adopting new processes or beginning to manufacture new products. This is a general gap that manufacturing extensions services such as IRAP in Canada, MAS in the United Kingdom, and MEP in the United States have long sought to address (Shapira et al (2015); Breznitz and Samford (2017)).…”

Endogenous growth with national innovation systems

“…2 2010, Mazzucato 2013, Kerr and Nanda 2015, Mazzucato and Penna 2015, Gush, Jaffe, Larsen and Laws 2017, Breznitz et al, 2018 3 Damsgaard and Krusell 2010, Benhabib et al, 2014 the contrary, we highlight that innovation occurs at all times and is in fact the dominant strategy for producers to survive the pressures of market selection and market competition. Our approach also contributes to the research and debate about the appropriate policy/institutional measures to support innovation.…”

“…91 For example, Barro and Sala-i-Martin 1997, Sachs and McArthur 2002, Aghion et al, 2013, and Lee 2013. 92 Nelson 1993, Breznitz 2007, Mazzucato 2013, Mazzucato and Penna 2015, Breznitz et al, 2018, Lee and Malerba 2018. 93 Lundvall 2007.…”

“…Certainly the government support to innovation involves more than financial support, including overall macroeconomic conditions (price stability, fiscal sustainability, sound financial systems). The relative merit of these practices and the merit of the innovation policy highlighted in more recent strands of the literature is a wide and still open area of academic debate (seePage 1994, Wade 1996, Mazzucato and Penna 2015, Breznitz, Ornston and Samford 2018.…”