Evaluating Public-Private Partnerships: Competence Centres

1. Evaluating Public-Private Partnerships: Competence Centres Erik Arnold Technopolis

2. Competence centres are spreading

3. They typically address weaknesses in innovation systems Source: Arnold and Kuhlmann, 2001

4. Policy instruments have moved towards MAPs / systems Measures Development measures MAPs and network measures Multiple Activity promotion or subsidy measures Linkage or ‘bridging’ measures Single Actors Single Multiple

5. Tackling both market and systems failures Measures • System strengthening • Within actors • Between actors • - Reducing bottlenecks Intra-organisational learning, capability development and performance improvement Multiple Inter-organisational learning, network development and strengthening Point or step change in organisational performance Single Actors Single Multiple

6. Competence centres are systems-changing MAPs… • Partnership of industry, university and a state agency, to affect university resource allocation and strategy, and reinforce university-industry links • Long term arrangements, requiring much bigger commitment than traditional R&D project funding • Create new on-campus structures making new structural demands on the universities • Interdisciplinary, problem-focused, work demanding networking across university structures • Close interaction with universities’‘core businesses’ of education and research • Intermingle academic and industrial research networks

7. Response mode/ ‘free’ research Strategic Programmes, Institutes and Infrastructures Strategic Innovation Agency Competence Centres Thematic R&D areas Absorptive Capacity Strategy and Foresight They have a key funding portfolio role

8. They work in both Edison’s and Pasteur’s Quadrants Pure basic research (Bohr) Use inspired basic research (Pasteur) Yes Quest for fundamental understanding Increasing market failure Pure applied research (Edison) Not a place you’d want to be … No Yes No Considerations of use Competence centre focus

9. Competence Centres Minimum capability required to participate Pre-competitive Collaborative Linked and Bilateral Support Increasingly fundamental research Increasing Nelson-Arrow market failure High state funding permits more radical innovation

10. Evaluation questions Are we doing the right thing? Are we doing it well? Does anything useful happen as a result? What should we do next? Input additionality Output additionality Learning (‘behavioural additionality’) Method problems Attribution of effects Timing of measurements Counterfactual situations Measuring dead weight and free riding They don’t change the evaluation issues…

11. How to measure their special characteristics… • Network analyses • Institutional analyses • Longitudinal study • Tackling the ‘project fallacy’: actors and constellations, not projects, are the interesting units of analysis

12. Knowledge - from Edison’s to Pasteur’s Quadrant People Knowledge Value Collectives Innovation Renewing the knowledge infrastructure and making it attractive Scientific and professional publications Qualifications, mobility, lifetime contributions Networks, clusters, communities Short-term economic value Sustainable institutions, viable industries, FDI Multiple valuation approaches are needed

13. Because the centres address many aspects of the NIS • Systemic interventions • Address ‘Knowledge Value Collectives’ • Create network relations supportive to constant innovation • Work in Mode 2 • Tackle interdisciplinary growth points • Produce especially relevant human resources • Offer a mechanism to tackle industrial flight from more fundamental research • Strengthen national and regional knowledge infrastructures in the face of R&D globalisation • Bottom-up programme implementation points to places where academic and industrial capabilities can reinforce each other, and where those involved are committed to doing so

14. 22.7 FTEs leverage a network with a minimum of 135 people Adding and absorbing Unilever Learning how to do inter-disciplinary work 1st reorganisation to improve inter-disciplinarity 2nd reorganisation (3 to 2 programmes, to move from simple to complex surfactant systems and focus on applications) Developed a theoretical model of surfactant interaction Common instrumentalities: ‘SNAP-test’ to determine likely applications domains of new surfactants Astra-Zenica now works with KTH Organic Chemistry and Biotech 6 academic groups 8 companies Akzo-Nobel-Unilever: hetero-gemini surfactants Akzo-Nobel-USM-Kymmene: etholylation of sito-steroids Two new groups formed at CTH Knowledge Value Collectives - eg SNAP

15. “It’s the people, stupid!!”

16. The centres affect location of R&D: Akzo-Nobel; ABB; Ford…

17. Disciplinary core Centres and interfaces External worlds They contribute to university modernisation

18. Cautious about quantification, but big benefits are apparent ISIS: ABB ILC of robots Polhem: Volvo Aero RR Trent CAP: EKA retention system SNAP: various Akzo-Nobel surfactants etc etc ………. FDI / Retention Benefits Benefits from accelerated usefulness of PhDs Next tranche of PhDs PhD wage differential

19. The Dutch exception • Four virtual institutes (polymers, metals, telematics, food) • Duration 4 + 4 + 2 => limited planning horizons • Funding 50:25:25 • Varying degrees of internal market and a range of project/programme buy-in mechanisms • Clearly useful for industry; less clearly Changing Research Culture

20. Long-run, long-lasting aspect of the centres Removing ‘spikes’ in centre launch and moving to ‘waves’ Competence centres as a way to do change management in the national research and innovation system Competence centres have a distinct place in the policy / instrument mix - they don’t fix all problems Market failure doesn’t go away Policy implications … Competence Centres Pre-competitive Collaborative Minimum capability required to participate Linked and Bilateral Support Capability Development Increasingly fundamental research Increasing Nelson-Arrow market failure