Innovation by Design: Impact and Effectiveness of Public Support for Business Innovation examines the conceptual and program models that exist for the design and implementation of government support of business innovation at different jurisdictional levels - from the national to the regional. It places this examination within the context of two broad approaches found in the literature, the traditional neoclassical approach to innovation policy and more recent evolutionary approaches. It explores the different policy approaches adopted in both leading economies, as well as several that have adopted a rapid innovation-based (RIB) approach to innovation policy and examines the relative merits of the respective approaches used by various governments. The monograph examines the existing evidence on the impact of a range of policy instruments, drawing on several recent reviews of both the academic and more policy-oriented literature. It also introduces the concept of the 'policy mix' for innovation that was introduced ten years ago in policy reviews undertaken for the European Union and OECD. It examines what value the 'policy mixes' approach adds to our understanding of the design and implementation of government programs for the support of business innovation. Finally, it addresses the question of how the introduction of innovation programs within a multi-jurisdictional, or federal, system complicates the evaluation of their impact and creates a need for greater policy alignment.

Regional Technology-Based Economic Development: Policies and Impacts in the U.S. and Other Economies describes the economic rationales, policy elements, implementation mechanisms, and expected economic impacts of "technology-based economic development" (TBED) strategies that are being pursued in almost all 50 states within the U.S. economy. Once the dominant leader in the development and commercialization of technology, the United States has failed to respond to this globalization trend with comprehensive TBED strategies. At the national level, a comprehensive "innovation policy" structure does not exist. This situation has left state governments with the daunting task of constructing and implementing their own TBED strategies. Such efforts are rapidly expanding, but with uneven results due to the difficulty in developing and managing the set of instruments comprising the required policy ecosystem. Section 1 assesses the economic trends that provide the rationales for the range of policy initiatives occurring at the state level. In section 2, individual policy mechanisms and options for their integration into a holistic TBED ecosystem are described and critiqued. Section 3 describes similar TBED investment efforts in European and Asian economies. Distinct differences in the structure of and relative emphasis on individual policy tools are analyzed relative to U.S. trends.

This monograph weaves together a history of theories of the diffusion of innovations in selected academic disciplines, tracing the influence of these theories in the formulation of national science and technology policies for 1960 to present. It moves along two main warps - disciplinary traditions of diffusion research and a synoptic history of U.S. science and technology policy - weaving them together at times and in places to demonstrate both their singular threads and crisscrossing patterns. Given the monograph's shifting focus back and forth between intellectual history and science and technology policy history over a 50+ year time period, it is useful to first set out the organization. Section 2 describes the concurrent rapid conceptual development and empirical testing in the 1960-1970s of models of diffusion of innovation in economics, geography, political science, and organizational theory that arose alongside but often in competition with prior ""traditions of research"" in (rural) sociology and anthropology, and the intra- and interdisciplinary battles over competing theories of diffusion for theoretical/disciplinary hegemony and policy relevance. Section 3 shifts from intellectual history to science and technology history. Section 4 describes the shifts beginning in the 1980s and continuing since then in policy agendas, conceptual models, and framing of U.S. science and technology policies and among OECD nations towards economic growth and competitiveness. Section 5 examines the re-emergence in assorted forms of academic interest and external funding in diffusion research circa 2000 to the present, also noting the current limited ties between this research and science and technology policy formulation.