Regional Innovation

The IPC is engaged in a variety of ways on questions related to regional innovation and economic development. From an industry studies perspective, the IPC is working in clean energy, researching how energy innovation might be driven at the regional level as well as the national level. The IPC hosted a New England regional energy summit in October, 2010 discussing the opportunities and challenges that face that region in growing the clean energy industry. The IPC is also working with leaders in Massachusetts in the biomanufacturing industry to understand how the region, a global leader in the industry, can maintain and further its innovative capacity in this area of advanced manufacturing.

The Local Innovation Systems project, an international multi-year research project completed in 2005, looked at the role of universities in helping develop the capabilities of local firms to take up new technological and market knowledge and to apply it effectively. The findings draw on studies of innovation-enabled industrial change in twenty-two locations in six countries including both high-tech and economically less favored regions as well as both mature and new industries

In 2008, Executive Director Elisabeth Reynolds co-authored a Brookings Institution report entitled, “Clusters and Competitiveness: A New Role for Stimulating Regional Economies”. The report outlined a strategy for linking, aligning and leveraging federal resources around regional cluster development. The Obama Administration has since adopted many of the recommendations.