Services Innovation Research Project Update

"The Republic of Engagement" Report, issued by AIM

Evidence based Innovation Policy & Practice Workshop

UK~IRC's Innovation Summit round up

UK~IRC related Events for 2010/2011

27 January
Evidence-based Innovation Policy & Practice workshop, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge

1st February
Seminar on the Future of Innovation Policy in the UK, Imperial College Business School, London

10-11 March
Professional services Workshop, Imperial College Business School, London

Please note these events are just a selection and are subject to change. For the most up to date details of events please go to www.ukirc.ac.uk/newsandevents/events/

New Joiner to the UK~IRC team

We are welcoming another new member to the UK~IRC team, Elif Bascavusoglu-Moreau, a Research Fellow who will be based in the Cambridge offices.

This is a familiar face to many of us as Elif previously worked at Imperial Business School as a Research Associate in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group, working on an ESRC Project on open innovation and servitization strategies of UK firms with Bruce Tether.

Elif will now be working on Innovation and Performance in Business Services, as part of the Services Innovation project, where she will focus on knowledge intensive business services.

New Year New look Front Page

There is a new look front page coming to the UK~IRC website soon. We hope you will like the new design and that you can easily find the information you are trying to get to. The new look has been designed to give quicker access to more of the information on the website and to give a higher prominence to the latest information about the centres activities.

Innovation Summit 2010 Round-up

Despite challenging weather conditions around the time of the 2010 UK~IRC's Innovation Summit there was a good turnout and as a result there were enlightening presentations and robust session discussions. A selection of some of the presentations from the day and podcast interviews with a number of the presenters can be seen on the 2010 Innovation Summit's event page. There will also be a summary report issued shortly, which will also be available on the event page.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our event supporters, Cambridge Integrated Knowledge Centre and the Technology Strategy Board.

Please keep an eye on our Events page on the website for news of the 2011 UK~IRC Innovation Summit.

Innovation Research Project Update
by Project Principal, Professor Bruce Tether

The Services Innovation project seeks to further understand how services interact with the rest of the economy at the macro level, and to understand the processes of innovation and industrial evolution at the firm and sectoral levels.

In the macro modeling side of the project, Ken Coutts and Bob Rowthorn have produced a paper on UK balance of payments (CBR working paper 394). This highlighted the critical role of three sectors for the UK’s future economic health: financial services, manufacturing, and (knowledge intensive) business services (KIBS).

Meanwhile, our work on the evolution of business services firms and sectors, has examined the diversification of design and engineering consultancies. One study examined the diversification of design consultancies, which are typically small to medium sized companies, into the new ‘space’ of digital design, which opened up with the rapid diffusion of the internet in the mid to late 1990s. This study was presented at the DRUID summer conference in London, as well as at the Academy of Management in Montreal.

A second study has examined the evolution of engineering consultancies, and particularly their engagement in international markets. The study gives some hints towards an industrial policy, particularly one that is inclined to improve the UK’s export performance in knowledge intensive business services.

As the project develops, we plan to undertake studies that focus on innovation and performance in business services. The macro level work will continue to examine how the business service sector interacts with other sectors in the UK economy, and how this compares with other advanced economies, such as the US, Japan, Germany and France.

To see more information on the findings and on-going work of the Services Innovation Project please click here. To see the latest on all of the UK~IRC's research projects please see the research pages on our website.

The Republic of Engagement
Exploring UK Academic Attitudes to Collaborating with Industry and Entrepreneurship

Drawing on a unique set of surveys of academics funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), this report explores changes in the way academics engage with industry in the UK between 2004 and 2009. Although there are new and increasing pressures for academics to engage with industry, the nature and extent of this industry engagement remains an area of choice for individual academics. To download the full report please go to www.aimresearch.org/index.php?page=academic-publications.

For further details regarding the reports the centre works on please keep looking at www.ukirc.ac.uk/knowledgeexchange/reports

Evidence-based innovation policy & Practice Workshop
27 January 2011

The UK~IRC and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are jointly hosting a one day workshop entitled “Evidence-based Innovation Policy & Practice”. The four main themes for the days programme are: