Innovation Policy as Industrial Policy: Some Lessons from Hamburg's Regional Innovation System

Abstract

The widespread transformation of the economic base has seen the decline of traditional manufacturing economies and the rise of knowledge-based economies. Consequently, conventional manufacturing-oriented industrial policy has become ‘future orientated’ towards the challenges of the knowledge-based economies, and increasingly replaced by innovation policy. Drawing upon original empirical research on Hamburg's regional innovation system, this paper unravels how innovation policy has increasingly sought to embed and realise the value of universities and publicly-funded research institutions by positioning them at the core of the regional innovation system. The outcome is that innovation policy plays an important catalytic role in promoting technology transfer and knowledge exchange. However, the success of this new agenda is shown to depend on its acceptance and adaptation by universities and publicly-funded research institutes. This study of Hamburg reveals how, when effectively achieved, innovation policy as a form of future-orientated industrial policy can restructure local economies as centres of high-technology research and development with strong science-industry links.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support of the British Academy, Grant No. 54305, for enabling us to undertake this work, and the interviewees for their willingness to participate. We are also grateful to Colin Williams, Angus Cameron, and Rita Monson for their feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.