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Regulatory authorities in developing economies not only face challenges regarding their own capabilities, but also have to grapple with heterogeneous levels of technological and innovation capabilities in firms. This paper draws from a firm-level analysis of internally created knowledge, externally sourced knowledge and firm heterogeneity among medical device manufacturers in South Africa to consider the corresponding evolution, development and deployment of regulatory capabilities in firms in their efforts to comply with the country’s health and allied products regulatory authority requirements. From this consideration, the paper explores possible broader adjustments in the country’s medical device sectoral system of innovation which would promote, nurture and embed the desired regulatory capabilities in firms to enable medical device firms to be locally and globally competitive and to contribute optimally to the country’s health sector objectives.

Some emerging countries have made significant progress in developing local pharmaceutical and biotechnology but had less success in building medical device industries. This paper explores the weak development of local medical device industries by analysing the contrasting evolutionary trajectories of Indian healthcare technology sectors. The Indian pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries have emerged as leading global suppliers of generic drugs and vaccines, in marked contrast to the medical devices industry. This paper reveals that weak collaborative linkage between medical device manufacturers and the Indian health system, largely absent systemic and cross-sectoral linkages, and weak communication between industry and government policy makers have become a huge barrier to the development of the Indian medical device industry in the contemporary neo-liberal environment. The weak connection between technology and industrial policy and healthcare policy objectives has severely hampered both development of national technological capabilities and the creation of affordable healthcare.

We use the concept of ‘imagined communities’, and related work on socio-technical imaginaries and expectations, to reflect on how Scotland is represented simultaneously as ‘sick and unhealthy’ and a ‘living lab’ due to its innovative medical research. Together, we suggest these narratives have driven a broader health and wealth agenda in post-devolution Scotland, which became salient during the 2014 independence referendum. We draw on research conducted during the independence referendum to consider how key stakeholders enacted imagined communities/identities (sick but also innovative) as they considered the historical impact of devolution on health and research systems and envisioned future independence. The referendum provided an opportunity to consider how Scottish health and research systems have been imagined over time. Our findings further the understanding of the impact of devolution on healthcare and medical research, revealing the role played by policy narratives rooted in imagined identities.

In this paper we investigate the implementation challenge of Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) in catch-up regional environments, through the lens of capacity building. We analyse capacity building at two levels: micro-level (individual organisations) and meso-level (regional inter-organisational networks). We use empirical evidence from 50 interviews conducted in the period 2015-17 from two Greek regions dramatically hit by the economic crisis (Crete and Central Macedonia). We argue that in the Cretan and Central Macedonian context, the difficulty of implementing S3 is directly linked with firms’ lack of adsorptive capability to exploit university-generated knowledge, university knowledge that is too abstract for firm’s to easily acquire, as well as to the capability of regional actors to build inter-organisational networking that fits their strategic needs.

This article analyses important changes in technological innovation in the upstream petroleum industry. It provides evidence that shifts in sectoral patterns of innovation over the petroleum industry’s lifecycle from the 1970s up to 2005 were dependent on the dynamics of knowledge base complexity, a key dimension of an industry’s technological regime. Accordingly, observed shifts in innovation patterns are understood to be the aggregated strategic response of industry innovators to changes in the technological regime. The article proposes a quantitative method for exploring knowledge base complexity and Schumpeterian patterns of innovation, and interactions between the two at the industry level. As the industry evolved, its knowledge base moved to higher orders of complexity creating a shift in the Schumpeterian pattern of innovation. Increased knowledge base complexity was found to alter Schumpeterian patterns from Mark I towards a ‘modified’ Mark II. Instead of coming predominantly from ‘traditional’ established oil operators, technological innovation was increasingly triggered by a new class of emergent integrated service companies – ‘second tier’ systems integrators of the upstream sector able to cope with increased knowledge base complexity.

This article analyses important changes in technological innovation in the upstream petroleum industry. It provides evidence that shifts in sectoral patterns of innovation over the petroleum industry’s lifecycle from the 1970s up to 2005 were dependent on the dynamics of knowledge base complexity, a key dimension of an industry’s technological regime. Accordingly, observed shifts in innovation patterns are understood to be the aggregated strategic response of industry innovators to changes in the technological regime. The article proposes a quantitative method for exploring knowledge base complexity and Schumpeterian patterns of innovation, and interactions between the two at the industry level. As the industry evolved, its knowledge base moved to higher orders of complexity creating a shift in the Schumpeterian pattern of innovation. Increased knowledge base complexity was found to alter Schumpeterian patterns from Mark I towards a ‘modified’ Mark II. Instead of coming predominantly from ‘traditional’ established oil operators, technological innovation was increasingly triggered by a new class of emergent integrated service companies – ‘second tier’ systems integrators of the upstream sector able to cope with increased knowledge base complexity.

For the first time, the UK research evaluation system, known as the Research Excellence Framework, considered ‘measures’ of impact in the 2014 review. Here, we focus on impact case studies that had an engineering and international development orientation. We found that writers of impact case studies commonly chose to employ an ecological modernization (economic, environmental, and social value) discourse to shape value claims. We also found that the type of engineering and international development research that appears in impact case studies tends to be high tech, best-with-best, and exclusive, rather than low tech, humanitarian, and inclusive.

The decades since the 1950s have witnessed major growth in the bioeconomy. Emergence of the bioeconomy as a broad, creative and rapidly expanding part of the global economy coincides with the maturation of the established drug discovery system. This paper presents research evidence focused on the relationships between changes in the bioeconomy and changes in the global economy. It argues that new forms of governance and regulation are key to strengthen industrial policies needed for emerging and developing countries to take account of the complex interactions in life science innovation between technology, markets, regulation and civil society, which could significantly impact on global distribution of the industry.

This paper is intended to understand the evolution of the Scottish science and innovations systems before the Scottish independence referendum of September 2014, and the prospects for the next years. Scotland traditionally has a strong science base, with world-leading universities driving the development of science, together with a diverse range of associated research institutes, which mostly survived the Thatcher government rationalisation and privatisation of public research institutes. The science system has been strengthened during the 2000s as devolution brought a set of new and expanded funding streams into the existing UK-based institutions.There are questions, however, about the relationship between the science base and Scotland’s innovation system. Although it is neither possible or healthy to attempt to rigidly glue science priorities directly to local innovation dynamics, it is important to analyse the frameworks, policies and relationships between actors and activities to understand how Scottish scientific excellence can be exploited to improve capacities for social, cultural and economic development.This paper first traces key elements of the historical development of the Scottish science system, and the relationship between science and innovation. Then, it details the present situation regarding Scotland’s science base, mapping the Scottish institutions that exist to integrate Scottish science policy. It shows that the science system already operates with some, though rather limited, autonomy from the rest of the UK. This is followed by an analysis of the rather tenuous level of connection between science and innovation. Finally, it presents some thoughts on the future prospects for science and innovation post-referendum.

This paper is driven by two key questions. First, what does a fully devolved healthcare system and partially devolved medical and clinical research system mean in practice, and what have been the social, economic and clinical challenges and opportunities engendered by devolution? Here, we want to identify and better understand the key institutional assets and unique selling points in Scotland that have been used to drive a particular health and wealth policy agenda. Second, what do different professionals and key stakeholders (academic researchers, NHS directors, research funders and commercial organisations) see as the potential benefits of full independence or further devolution, and what do they feel may be lost for clinical and medical research, society, economy and public health?A key message from our work in this area is that the Scottish healthcare system and the clinical and medical research systems are very much interdependent, and the complex institutional ecology that has evolved since devolution will have a significant impact on how the benefits and limitations of independence will be realised and distributed. So far the debate about independence has focused very much on health and social care, but the Scottish system and its quality depends hugely on its medical and clinical research base. This paper addresses this important part of the independence debate.This Working Paper is one in a series as part of Innogen’s work with the ESRC Future of the UK and Scotland programme.