Varieties of Innovation and Welfare Regimes: The Leap from R&D Projects to the Development of City-regions

Abstract

In the varieties of capitalism, welfare capitalism, and systems of innovation literatures, the university is a critical actor as public employer, trainer and provider of several public goods. However, there is relatively weak enquiry into the spatial and institutional characteristics of university-led economic development and a relative neglect of the political economy and organizational features of embedded R&D projects in urban and regional planning. We argue that technical projects, far from being stand-alone entities, have taken on the broad characteristics of the university and city-regional development mandate in where they reside. The article is based on an exploratory study of university–industry R&D projects in six city regions of Finland. We show that: (a) the shifting role of universities reflects a changed context for the welfare state in which the “public” debate occurs; (b) These create distinct issues of legitimacy and coalition-building in local economic planning which give rise to diverse regional interpretations of single technology programmes; (c) We categorise three general types of models of R&D projects in universities and propose tentative categories of contributions to “public knowledge”. This diversity of interpretations and outcomes leaves us optimistic regarding the ability of city-regions to adapt and plan for the future against a changing welfare state that shapes the university's role, yet more cautious about any clear-cut “public knowledge” emerging from such technical projects.

Notes

Local Innovation Systems (LIS) study carried out in 2002–2005. The LIS study covered five countries—US, UK, Norway, Finland and Japan—with the aim to describe local innovation systems in different regions in selected technology areas. The study was led by the MIT Industrial Performance Centre (IPC) in Cambridge, MA, USA.

The term “publicly” does not mean that funding for a project comes from exclusively public sources. Typically most of the R&D projects are partly financed by companies. “Publicly-funded” refers to financial support by public agencies as well as public support and policy-push for such types of innovation.

By “public knowledge” we refer to publicly shared knowledge or knowledge as a public good as distinct from universal scientific knowledge (Ziman, 1996) that aims for advancement of our understanding.

FINLEX Data Bank. The Legislative information of Finnish legislation at http://www.finlex.fi/en/.

University filial centres (town-based university consortiums) are small university unit concentrations in Finnish less favoured regions, where different university filial units are brought together to form a local hub for research and education. These centres are supported by the Ministry of Education and were formally launched in early 2004.