RTD Linkages

Century of Endeavour

RTD Linkages in Less-Favoured Regions

Roy H W Johnston PhD (1)

This paper was prepared for Dr Stan Nielsen, of the National Board for Science and Technology, in a context where he was associated with a team producing a report for the European Commission on inter-regional science and technology linkages, in a European development context. I had been attempting to research this, as between Ireland and Brittany, with some support from Shannon Development, and some of this experience is embodied in this paper.

1. Introduction

In this paper an attempt is made to elaborate several feasible mechanisms for research and technological development linkages ('RTDLs') between various less-favoured regions (LFRs) in Community member-States. Some of these RTDLs may lend themselves to reinforcement with the aid of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

We begin by listing and classifying the various conventional RTD mechanisms which are currently in use within regions as development stimuli, and note the existence of some problems specific to LFRs.

We go on to suggest a model for the integration of these separate mechanisms into an active 'technopole' system as a focus, or foci, of regional development, appropriate to an LFR context.

We then address the question of inter-regional linkages, with particular reference to the actual or potential role of the 'technopole' in the process of identification of linkage opportunities, and maintenance of linkages once established.

Finally we attempt to identify some ways in which the ERDF might support the regional development process specifically via the RTDL mechanism.

While the main body of the present paper is culled from the direct experience of the writer, he is indebted to a number of correspondents for useful comments on interim discussion documents circulated; these are acknowledged and summarised in extended footnotes.

2. Conventional RTD Mechanisms

The conventional wisdom is to consider six categories of RTD support mechanism: (a) research support (b) higher education industry links (c) manpower mobility, placement and skills development (d) technology transfer (e) entrepreneurial support (f) general awareness. We consider this categorisation in the following sub-sections:

2.1 Research

Policy objectives in research support systems have sometimes focused on the implanted specialist research centre, in a specific discipline, sub-discipline or problem area(2); at other times they have sought to establish 'centres of excellence' in existing generalist research centres, or in the research facility of a teaching institution.

In the context of LFR, unless the specialist research area is firmly based on a regional resource and its developmental needs, it is natural that the people working in the 'centres of excellence' should aspire to a career profile within discipline, and seek eventually to move on to a 'global centre of excellence' in a developed region elsewhere.

This is an aspect of the 'brain-drain' problem; the development agency in the LFR has the task of establishing a centre of excellence capable of reaching a global level, such as to attract people to it, and generate spin-off industries, taking up the slack in the regional intellectual resource(3).

It is generally held that there exists a 'critical mass', or 'threshold level of intellectual resource development' above which it is feasible to establish a 'centre of excellence' that stands on its own, without being rooted in the scientific needs of the development of a natural resource within the region.

An LFR can begin to build the intellectual resource around the natural resource needs, and then subsequently encourage the intellectual resource towards its own independent development. (4).

2.2 Links with Higher Education

Most of the mechanisms in this category (industrial liaison offices, research parks, teaching companies, research ventures etc) are characteristic of developed regions. Attempts made in LFRs with which the writer is familiar have tended to relate to various possible ways of developing the role of the industrial liaison office (ILO) as a service to small and medium enterprises (SME) in the region. The environment of an ILO in an LFR tends to consist of (a) local production units of trans-national corporations (TNCs) which get their R and D done within their own system, usually elsewhere (b) regional SMEs which are not innovative.

It is possible to develop linkages with this somewhat unpromising environment only if the resources exist for an aggressive marketing policy. In the case on TNCs, it is sometimes possible to identify areas of service where proximity to the source of expertise is an advantage(5); if student placement procedures exist, these of necessity involve some staff contact, leading to problem identification; this however is only possible if the academic staff are competent specialists in the problem area, and are motivated to supply a consultancy service.

In the case of regional SMEs where there is graduate recruitment and an 'old-boy network', contact develops relatively easily. In most cases however there is no tradition of technological graduate recruitment, and State intervention is necessary to foster it (6). Once this intervention takes place, the evidence is that the graduates so recruited become active agents of innovation, developing links with their alma maters, or the local college, with ease.

In this context it is worth remarking that if there exists a resource-based centre of excellence in an LFR, it is important that it be linked with the higher education system, so as to encourage an 'old-boy network' dynamic to develop(7).

2.3 Manpower Mobility and Skills

The key problem here from the LFR angle is the purpose of the mobility, and the policies governing skills development. A second and related problem is the science-engineering interface. Mobility of scientists within discipline tends to be a recipe for brain-drain, unless as a conscious part of a planned programme to develop a specific resource-related centre of excellence.

A feature of Irish experience is relative over-production of scientists vs engineers (8), masked by brain-drain among scientists. There is virtually no mechanism for LFR scientists to leak over into situations of acceptance by the engineering community as purveyors of innovative technological principles; this linkage tends to be made in the central developed regions in the contexts of the major technological laboratories. An exception is the communications field, where physics graduates can gain engineering acceptance. Other scientific disciplines tend to remain aloof from the interface with engineering, and to think in terms of mobility abroad within discipline.

Opportunities are beginning to present themselves with biotechnology, where small-scale niche opportunities exist, requiring process engineering experience for scale-up.

Mobility across disciplines, with recycling programmes enabling supplementary qualifications to be picked up, is beginning to become significant. There is scope for active encouragement of this process in the LFR context.

2.4 Technology Transfer

Hitherto the LFR attitude to technology has been that it is primarily something to be brought in from outside, by experts from abroad; the actual transfer takes place via the sale of equipment, with knowhow being transferred by the salesman. Alternatively, a TNC is invited in and brings technology with it, which for the LFR is innovative but for the TNC is obsolescent.

Support services for technology transfer have thus tended to consist of centres of knowhow, maintained at public expense, enabling SMEs to make an informed selection of bought-in technology (9).

Matchmaking programmes exist enabling SMEs to identify appropriate TNCs for sub-contracting; this usually involve transfer of manufacturing and quality control knowhow; this can sometimes lead on towards the independent design of innovative products, especially when aided by State R and D grants(10).

A problem with State-funded centres of knowhow is rooted in the demography of their workforces. Typically, they are recruited to an established number with a young work-force at start-up time, which then ages without dynamic renewal. Such centres need to be related dynamically to the innovative enterprise development process, with mobility of personnel in both directions of all age-groups (11).

2.5 Entrepreneurship

The key concept here is the incubation centre, where an innovative enterprise can emerge in a supportive environment. An aspect of the support system is the protection of the innovative element by the use of the patent process. (Where an innovation is licenced in from abroad, this constitutes 'technology transfer'; this can in the LFR context constitute innovative entrepreneurship.)

This process is often backed up by 'entrepreneurship training programmes', in which the focus is on trying to adapt the thinking of the inventor or innovator towards an entrepreneurial mould. Such programmes would appear to be successful in proportion as they place the emphasis on team-work and complementary skills, distinguishing creatively between the roles of inventor, innovator and entrepreneur(12).

2.6 General Awareness

State services exist which can convey relevant information across a wide spectrum to SMEs, with referral to specialist sources. Such centres often fulfil a positive promotional role, making known to SME in LFR the range of support services available for technological innovation, by means of special events etc. Such events are effective in proportion as the people involved in SMEs are receptive to innovative ideas, and in proportion as innovative entrepreneurship is culturally acceptable in the LFR(13).

2.7 LFR-LFR Linkages involving conventional RTD mechanisms

In the context of the processes listed above, the following RTDLs exist, at least on paper:

Exchanges of scientific personnel between resource-based regional research centres (eg agriculture, forestry, mariculture).
Exchanges of technological personnel between technology transfer support services(14).
Exchange of enterprise incubation centre experience.

These linkage mechanisms are already nominally catered for in EEC-funded schemes(15). It is not clear however the extent to which mechanisms exist for identifying the personnel, matching them to the exchange process and relating the mobility-event to a specific development project. On the whole the intellectual infrastructures of most LFRs have not been in a position to take these up to anything like the same extent as they have been taken up in the central developed regions(16). Despite this relatively unpromising environment, and without having had the opportunity of surveying systematically all existing inter-LFR linkages, we are however aware of several examples of initiatives, which may be used for pilot experience:

An enterprise development programme in electronics, aimed at young postgraduates, organised between the Limerick and Belfast 'technopoles' (we define this term below), involving planned sharing of experience(17).
A pilot-project between Galway and Groningen, in which an attempt was made to identify SMEs in each region interested in licencing, joint ventures or commercial agreements (18).
A somewhat similar pilot-project between the Irish mid-west region and Brittany, which attempted to identify not only SME partners but also partners in the research centres with which innovative SMEs were locally interacting; this was funded by SFADCo (19).
An IDA-funded project has initiated exchange visits between innovative SMEs in Ireland and Bavaria(20).
Experience relating to transport and communications between islands and remote communities has been exchanged between development agencies and co-operatives in the north of Scotland and the west of Ireland(21).
Udaras na Gaeltachta has been sending management trainees to pick up fish processing technology and marketing experience in Brittany(22).
Regional development experience has been shared between Scotland and Scandinavia(23).

In the following section, an attempt is made to integrate all six classes of mechanism into a single active 'technopole' or 'centre of scientific, technological and economic development', and to suggest how with such an enhanced system inter-regional STD linkages might play a dynamic part in the 'less-favoured region' growth or regeneration process.

3. Technopole Model

This section is an attempt to set up a theoretical model of possible use in understanding the process of regional development. We attempt to specify the outline of a human system of which the purpose is the transformation of an 'LFR' into a state of dynamic growth; we also attempt to specify some of the key sets of variables which characterise the environment of the system.

In what follows, we work simultaneously at two levels: (a) we describe a typical real-world 'technopole' in its environment (b) in doing so we simultaneously specify a dynamic model of the technopole system in its environment, for embedding in the technopole management information system as an aid to development planning.

3.1 System and Environment

Consider a technopole system in a regional environment. The 'technopole' system consists of 3 sub-systems:

a teaching sub-system, taking in students and turning out graduates;
a research sub-system, taking in problems and putting out solutions; the research sub-system may also, if closely linked with the teaching sub-system, take in graduates and put out postgraduates specialised towards a sector or discipline;
an enterprise incubation sub-system taking in postgraduates and putting out innovative enterprises.

Both teaching and research sub-systems have to regenerate themselves with a recruitment policy, which reflects itself into the quality and orientation of the services given.

The system resides in an environment characterised by four subsets of variables; these are often the subjects of independent study from different disciplinary points of view (24). The subsets may be labelled:

economic/social
technological/functional
cultural/motivational
political.

We attempt to specify some relevant variables in these categories, and to suggest where appropriate databases might be developed, so as to be accessible for integrated interdisciplinary work with the proposed model as aid, providing a standard framework for inter-regional comparisons, and possibly the identification of complementarities leading to inter-regional linkages.

3.2 Inputs to System

These are quantifiable from various routinely active databases and include:

cash flow from Community, central and regional government, and from the marketplace
staff attributes
students
problems
services.

3.2.1 Cash Flow

The extremes are (a) total support from Community funds (25), and (b) total dependence on the market(26).

Intermediate situations involve funding from central and regional government in some proportion. There are indications that an important factor is regional government support (27), linked to regional political awareness of the importance of RTD in regional development.

In proportion as the 'enterprise-generating sub-system' is effective, it will absorb venture-funding from the market.

3.2.2 Staff

A staff recruit is characterised by a primary discipline, a set of research interests, a preferred industrial sector, specific contacts in that industrial sector (and possibly in others). In the model he or she is not merely a statistic but is individually identified with the above attributes. The staff database is the measure of the key technopole resource; it should not reside in a personnel department, but rather in a department having specific responsibility for keeping track of staff research and consultancy activity. Let us label this unit the 'linkage monitoring unit' or LMU.

3.2.3 Students

A statistical measure of student intake would need to be classified by discipline, type and origin; for example whether straight from school or post-experience, from within or outside the region; by type of school(28). This data-set should normally be accessible via the student registration office.

3.2.4 Problems

We here distinguish the 'micros' from the 'macros'; in the model the former are counted statistically, being solved (in the real world) typically within discipline with a few man-days consultancy time (if time-constrained), or as an undergraduate project with minor staff input (if unconstrained). The macro-problems are identified, given a set of attributes (including a client firm) and a budget.

The problems are dealt with in the 'research sub-system'; a sub-set of them may generate opportunities for innovative product or process development (for existing client firms) or for innovative enterprise.

This database is the 'first differential' of the staff database (ie the former should periodically update the latter); it should therefore naturally be accessible via the LMU.

3.2.5 Services

The principal service contributed by the environment to the teaching system is exposure of students and staff to experience within firms; this can be quantified by firm and/or sector; as regards students the database should reside with the officer responsible for student placement. As regards staff, the database should reside with the LMU; it would consist of the record of quasi-consultancy assignments where no money changed hands, the benefit being two-way.

3.3 Policy Variables

A key variable is the ratio of teaching to research and consultancy, by discipline. Extreme cases would be (a) the all-teaching institution (b) the implanted research centre without teaching function. Intermediate cases would include the single institution with teaching and research functions, and the research institution close to, but separate from, a teaching institution.

One should be able to use the model to evaluate the impact of various types of implant, varying the mix.

3.4 System Outputs

There are 4 main outputs from the system:

graduate numbers by discipline, having had specific sectoral experience in their project work, and in their period of work-experience in industry
solutions to problems, subdivided into micro (measured statistically) and macro (identified individually, involving identified staff, identified firms and a budget)
Innovative products and processes in existing firms
Innovative enterprises and ventures.

3.5 The Environment

We attempt to specify the environment of the 'technopole' by reference to four distinct classes (29) of variable:

economic and social
functional and technological
cultural and motivational
State and political.

Each category of environmental variable is susceptible of meaningful study in its own right, from within different disciplines. Without the insights generated by the integrating 'technopole in the environment' model, however, such studies may tend to lack cohesion and bite. In association with the model, they can be made to interact creatively.

Each category is likely to throw up its own key variable or variables to govern the interface with the technopole system.

3.5.1 Economic/Social

Against a background of basic State statistics, it would be necessary to have a regional dataset (30) in some detail: population, demography, educational resources and throughput at 2nd level, etc.

As regards economic activity, the basic economic statistics by sector would need to be supplemented by a database of firms, with as much detail as is necessary to classify them on the following or similar system: three distinct classifiers are envisaged, the first covering level of independence for decision-making (eg independent within region, independent in the State but decisions made outside the region, decisions made outside the State), the second covering whether know-how or resource-based, the third covering level of association with the technopole (eg a research client and/or provides a source of student experience, no active contact etc). One could envisage an array of vectors specifying the values of the three classifiers for each firm.

A useful measure would be the number of graduates on the staff, and its annual increment.

This database would reside primarily with the economic and social research people, with an appropriate abstract of it residing in the LMU.

It would also be necessary to maintain a database of regional, national and international market intelligence; this could reside in the Business School and would be accessible to the emerging innovative enterprise teams (See Section 2.5 above, also Note 12). The international dimension of this database would be influenced by, and would be supportive of, the inter-regional linkage process outlined in Section 4 below. This business school marketing database could also usefully be accessible to established firms in the region in the context of contract market research.

Venture-capital sources exist at international and national level, and also at regional level for small-scale projects (30a). Ease of access to these sources would constitute a measure of technopole standing. The State and the ERDF can intervene to supplement these sources, in the case of LFRs.

3.5.2 Functional/Technological

There are various approaches to this; for example one can define a technology vector for each firm in the region, or one can define statistically the number of firms in the region using a given technology, or one can approach it by sector and define a technology vector for each sector.

It would be necessary to classify technologies at a level of abstraction appropriate to the region. The complexity of the technological classification problem is a measure of the level of development of the region. One might adopt the principle that a set of sub-technologies would be grouped into a package corresponding to the area of consultancy utility of a technopole staff member.

This database should reside in a specialist unit of the technopole labelled 'techno-economics', and would constitute a tool of the trade. Typically it might be developed by an applied scientist or an engineer located in an economics department (31); it should be readily accessible from the LMU.

3.5.3 Cultural/Educational

This class of environmental variable is usually studied by sociologists(32).

At the level of the individual, one might measure (a) discipline preference at entry (b) job-type and location preference on graduation.

Key variables would measure the subjective attitude to the probability of obtaining a satisfying job within the region, and to the option of being associated with the start-up of an innovatory enterprise.

At the level of the firm, there should be accessible an objective measure of the amount of resources available for financing innovatory developments on the basis of decisions taken within the region. This objective measure would be related (a) in the case of a remotely-managed firm, to the attitude of central management to local initiative and decentralisation (b) in the case of a firm within the region, to the attitude of the firm's management to innovation. These can be regarded as aspects of the 'business culture' in the environment.

Databases giving access to these types of environmental variable would need to reside in the 'linkages monitoring unit'; they could be abstracted from the records of student sociological survey work, and inferred from intelligence gathered during industrial consultancy work, and during the monitoring of the student placement process by the supervisors concerned.

3.5.4 Political

There are two aspects to this (a) degree of decentralisation of decision-making (b) the tax environment.

If one considers the total budgets available for developmental activity (research, education, enterprise start-up support, new product development etc) at Community, national State, regional authority and local authority levels, and estimates the share of these budgets attributable to the pull of this particular technopole, one should be able to construct some sort of multivariate measure of political leverage.

The funding of teaching, research and enterprise development activities are each separately made up of blends of local, regional, national and Community inputs.

One might try to quantify the effectiveness of the available channels of political influence over these sources.

This type of database might perhaps be stimulated to emerge within the technopole political science discipline, or in an appropriate national research centre (eg in Ireland the IPA) (33).

The tax environment has an important influence on the development of innovatory start-up enterprises. It is important that the recruitment of an expanded workforce be not inhibited by the tax regime; it should rather be encouraged (34).

3.6 Integrative Potential of Linkage Monitoring Unit

Referring back to Section 3.2 it will be seen that active databases of relevance to all the various types of support systems would reside in the 'Linkage Monitoring Unit' of the technopole (35).

It follows that this unit has the potential

(a) for the systematic study of the performance of the technopole itself (36), including the production and manipulation of a detailed analytical planning model of the technopole in its environment, realised on a mainframe computer, with direct on-line access to all associated databases, or relevant abstracts of them; also

(b) for generating an abstracted integrated database, giving the key details of all technopole activity, in a manner comparable with other centres of growth or regeneration which have consciously adopted the 'technopole' as a focus for development.

4. Inter-Regional Linkages

In the previous sections we have specified firstly the various within-region linkages mechanisms supportive of research and technological development, and secondly the procedure for focusing these mechanisms around a 'technopole', assigning a special role to a postulated 'linkage monitoring unit' which would be the prime source of relevant active databases.

This unit would know which firms in the region were active with innovative developments, who in the technopole was in contact with which firm, what start-ups were taking place or were in prospect, what the main areas of postgraduate research were, and which of these were assuming the form of business feasibility studies.

It would be in a position to put an abstract of all this activity into a form suitable for an all-European database, and to keep the latter updated on a routine basis(37).

Once such a European database existed, containing comparable abstracted information about other technopoles in regions of 'growth at the periphery', in structurally regenerating regions, and in the central developed regions, it would then become possible to scan this database from time to time, with structured search procedures evolved in discussions between the LMU and the associated firm(s) or researcher(s).

A regional database of this type could form the basis for publishing a Directory of Innovative SMEs, or an SME Guide to New Product and Process Development. A network of such regional database nodes, with their associated directories, would constitute a low-cost information-source for use in prospecting synergistic inter-regional linkages by pro-active regional development planning teams located at the technopoles(38).

The results of such search procedures might be either (a) research collaborations between research personnel in two or more technopoles in different regions, leading subsequently to enterprise developments planned from the start to complement each other, or (b) commercial agreements between existing firms associated with two or more technopoles, leading to the specification of collaborative research programmes(39).

A useful resource for a technopole linkage development unit would be a teleconferencing facility, for use in joint meetings between prospective LFR partners, and with Government and Community decision-makers, or between common-interest groups in several LFRs (eg Research Associations; see below).

Typical commercial agreements between innovative firms in the technopole hinterlands might involve two-way market access with complementary products, collaborative assault on a third market with an enhanced product, or an extended product range, joint-venture development programmes, or whatever(40).

5. Methods of ERDF Support

Instead of several separate schemes supporting one or other linkage mechanism at a detailed level under central Community control, it seems appropriate to suggest that the ERD funding should concentrate on supporting the overhead of the regional technopole linkage monitoring unit, in such a way as to encourage support also from the relevant regional authority or development agency, and help establish the regional technopole as a consciously organised, viable engine of regional economic development.

A significant proportion of the funding should go towards subsidising travel in the context of negotiating and implementing commercial and/or research agreements between enterprises and/or research centres. Control of this funding should be within-region.

Funding for the latter process alone however would not be sufficient; the core of the funding should be devoted to the 'linkage monitoring unit', this being the principal method of identifying, setting up and maintaining the inter-regional linkages.

Once there is in existence in an LFR a technopole with a pro-active linkage development unit, having the competence and ability to recognise potential synergies, there are various types of linkage opportunity which can be developed, for example:

(a) Research Associations: a grouping of firms in several LFRs using a particular technology, with support from local research centres, developing where necessary specialist facilities at an appropriate location (41). We are envisaging the transfer of the old-established RA principle as pioneered in Britain into a mode appropriate to LFR development.

(b) Demonstration Projects: one might envisage the establishment of projects, with an appropriate innovative technology implanted in an LFR environment, enabling hands-on experience to be gained in a variety of LFR environments(42).

(c) Licencing and technology transfer between an SME and an appropriate partner SME in a developed region, or an innovative SME in a developing LFR(43).

(d) Development of a rationale for the implantation of an appropriate 'Joint Research Centre' (JRC) into a particular LFR environment, for use by several LFRs sharing a problem, or having access to a common type of resource(44).

(e) Organising trips abroad, or periods of study and work-experience, with identified personnel appropriate to identified regional problems. NB This process should not be dependent on an exchange process, as stipulated in (eg) the COMETT scheme; people in LFRs on balance need to spend more time abroad gaining experience than people in developed regions(45).

(f) Development of a positive structured approach, involving the postgraduate RTD personnel and SME management, to language and cultural barriers.

It is essential that decisions relating to ERDF funding applied to any of the above actions be made rapidly and with minimal bureaucracy, by an accessible agency within the LFR technopole, according to guidelines laid down centrally in the Community interest. It should not be necessary for an SME manager or an RTD activist in an LFR to have to submit extensive paperwork for remote sanction. It should be possible to come to an arrangement whereby technopole management provided central Community policy development people with appropriate annual reports on linkage development activity, and were subject to appropriate auditing procedures.

NOTES

This being a typical 'grey publication' these notes are given at a level of detail appropriate to its target readership at the time. It would not be appropriate in this context to try to update them. They constitute part of the 'flavour' of the document.

1. The writer qualified in physics and mathematics in 1951 in the University of Dublin. After a decade in high-energy nuclear physics (Paris Ecole Polytechnique, Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies) he made the transition to industrial R and D via Guinness and Aer Lingus, working on quality and process instrumentation and control, and then on real-time computer systems. Since 1970 he has been engaged in general applied-scientific consultancy, with a specialist referral network in the Irish R and D system, mainly in the universities and colleges of technology. His most recent work has been with various State agencies in the development of mechanisms for enhancing the role of colleges of technology in regional enterprise development.

2. Such centres, while stimulating the regional consumer goods market, tend to remain aloof from regional development dynamics. For example, the Belgian nuclear research centre at Mol has had little impact on SME in the relatively depressed region in which it was implanted (cf Guido Declerq, Investco, Brussels). It remains to be seen whether the laser research centre implanted by the French government at Guidel-Plages, near Lorient in Brittany, will stimulate spin-off industry, this being the declared intention (cf H le Bodo, Directeur, Laboratoire d'Energetique Laser et Thermophysique). Insofar as the telecommunications research centre CNET, implanted at Lannion, has spun off enterprises, they have gone to developing regions in the south rather than locally (cf Michel Urien, Correspondant PME, CNET). Pure knowhow enterprise is intrinsically footloose and will not tend to identify with regional development needs unless manned by people culturally committed to the development of their own region. See also Note 25 below.

3. A 'centre of excellence' (in a resource-related basic science) on its own is a necessary but not a sufficient basis for regional development. For example, there is marine algae research in UCG which is well integrated into the international network, getting TNC funding with Community support; the local resource-based industry (which incidentally has the State as a majority shareholder) however remains a supplier of raw material to another TNC, without aspiration to add value based on local R and D. This is an example of what can happen in the absence of a dynamic regional development plan aimed at bringing regional knowhow and resources together.

4. Typically, a regional natural resource might require instrumentation and/or analytical systems for its recognition, and for the monitoring of its quality; also process systems for its exploitation. The intellectual resources for such developments can rapidly become productive systems in their own right, with export potential. Typical of this is the TCD spin-off Environmental Resources Analysis ltd, which has developed remote sensing technology as a service to geological prospecting etc. (cf Dr Adrian Phillips).

5. For example, a Japanese producer of polymers, producing in Ireland for the European market, needing to monitor the distribution of molecular weights during a change in the process, found it easier to go to a university laboratory in Dublin than to send samples to Japan (this happened within the writer's direct experience).

6. A scheme in Ireland whereby the State pays the total salary of a young graduate of science or engineering for the first year's work in a firm which has never previously employed graduates, has had a 65-70% continuation rate at the end of the year, at the firms expense. It would have been 90% had not an appreciable number of the young graduates wanted to move on. (cf Pat Frain NBST).

7. The relationship between the agricultural co-operatives and the Cork Faculty of Dairy and Food Science in an example of this process. Such a network however can be a conservative force, especially if the emphasis in the training is on production technology, rather than on new product development and marketing.

8. A paper by the present writer (in collaboration with Genevieve Franklin) was read on 9/1/75 at the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland (cf Vol XXIII, Part 2). This analysed the 1971 census data (which gave for the first time information on scientists and engineers), linked it with graduate production data and R and D data, producing an outline manpower plan. Relative overproduction of scientists relative to engineers was identified; subsequently the Higher Education Authority expanded substantially the engineering schools, and encouraged the production of postgraduate technology-oriented 'conversion courses' for scientists.

9. This is basically the role of the agricultural machinery centre of An Foras Taluntais (Agricultural Institute) at Oakpark.

10. cf the National Linkage Programme of the IDA, led by Dr Bill Chambers.

11. The ADRIA food research centre at Quimper in Brittany has resolved this problem by having a small core-team of applied-research managers, with the hands-on work being done by specialist staff brought in on a temporary part-time basis from the neighbouring IUT (Institut Universitaire de Technologie). Young graduates also move through this system and out into industry, where they become an innovative 'old-boy network'.

12. The Limerick model, developed with the aid of the Californian entrepreneur Marshall Fitzgerald, takes relatively mature aspirant entrepreneurs (age 30-40) and places great emphasis on team development, in some cases linking up with younger innovators having technological backgrounds emerging via the NIHE postgraduate system and the Innovation Centre. (cf Tom Carroll, NIC).

13. The NBST 'Techscan' service, publications like 'Technology Ireland', and the various IIRS short courses on new technologies etc are examples of this.

14. The European Technology Transfer Association (TII) has recently been set up with the support of DG XII; this has begun to establish a contact network, mostly involving agencies in 'structural LFRs' or 're-developing regions'. The French 'ARIST' network, which extends to all regions, including LFRs, interfaces with TII at a few selected points (including Lille, Strasbourg, Lyons).

15. The 'exchange' aspect of the linkages, which dominates existing schemes, is however not suited to the real needs of LFRs; people in LFRs wishing to travel to pick up experience find it difficult to identify a counterpart abroad, thus being inhibited. Also people in developed regions are seldom interested in work experience in LFRs, unless they aspire to work under 'third-world' conditions for altruistic reasons. (Cf Ciaran Comerford, IIRS; also the NIHE 'co-operative education' people, who have run into the problem when seeking student placements abroad.)

16. In the typical small regional college of technology, primarily dedicated to basic teaching, the staff simply do not have the time or energy to prepare proposals; on the rare occasions that they do, they submit them expecting a low probability of success to a distant authority perceived as uncaring.

17. cf Prof Noel Mulcahy, NIHE (Limerick); this project has European Science Foundation support.

18. cf Dr J Watson, University College Galway; this project had Community support under the technology transfer programme.

19. Inter-Regional Technology Transfer Linkages, R H W Johnston, June 19 1986; SFADCo; cf T Callanan.

20. cf Frank Murray, Irish Industrial Development Authority.

21. cf Keith Sellar, Aberdeen; see also proceedings of Limerick seminar (NIHE, 4/7/86) 'Growth at the Periphery' convened by Prof David Coombes.

22. cf Aongus Mac Donnell in Udaras na Gaeltachta; there is also AnCO and CII participation in this process, with ESF support. So far the emphasis has been on marketing, but there is no reason why it should not extend to RTD.

23. cf Lawrence West, UK UDIL network (Bradford).

24. This gives rise to problems, in that each discipline thinks it 'owns' the regional development problem, and the imposition of an 'interdisciplinary systems approach' is viewed with initial suspicion or even hostility.

25. This is the 'implant' situation referred to in Section 2.1. For an example additional to those cited in Note 2, there is a Community-funded 'European Foundation for Working and Living Conditions' set up at Loughlinstown, near Dublin. This would appear to have little impact on the regional intellectual infrastructure. The various laboratories inherited from Euratom (Ispra etc) are also in this category.

26. This is perhaps the case with some US colleges and/or research centres; it is rarely encountered in Europe.

27. Except in the Limerick case, where SFADCo exists as an active regional development agency, this factor is absent in Ireland, all development funding being handled centrally by Dublin agencies. The existing Irish local government system lacks the necessary muscle. In contrast, regional and municipal governments in the UK and on the continent are playing an increasingly important role in this process (cf, for example, Dr Mike Cooley in the Greater London Enterprise Board, or Mme Jacqueline Poussier in Rennes Atalante).

28. The dominant type of school at second level could turn out to be an important determinant of the cultural environment. Typically in Ireland the regional educational system has tended to be dominated by religious orders, specialising in verbal and academic skills, and inculcating a philosophy of aspiration to a white-collar job in the metropolis. The vocational system, concentrating on practical skills and the 'useful arts', has tended to be looked down upon by the provincial elite. It is necessary to reverse these priorities if a technopole is to function as a focus of economic growth in a peripheral region.

29. A classification along these lines was proposed by Professor Noel Mulcahy at the 'Growth at the Periphery' seminar in Limerick (4/7/86); the problem of defining a model an an aid to interdisciplinary analysis of the technopole process was addressed, with the participation of a number of economists, sociologists and technologists from several peripheral EEC development centres. In the context of this seminar, the problem addressed in Note 24 above surfaced and its existence has been noted.

30. Much of this spadework has already been done; eg Michael Cuddy and Tom Boylan in UCG have developed a standard EEC methodology for 'integrated regional development plans', in the context of both Regional and Social Funds.

30a. For example, the Drogheda Chamber of Commerce has established a venture fund for use in the purchase of second-hand equipment for local enterprise, where this is appropriate. This is often a low-cost way into local enterprise development, alternative to via the IDA, which only grant-aids new equipment.

31. Such a situation exists, for example, in the Science Policy Research Unit of the UCD Economics Department, so that this unit would be well placed to develop such a database and make it nationally available.

32. Joyce O'Connor in NIHE Limerick has studied the regional enterprise generation process, both in Ireland and between Ireland and Italy; she has for example monitored for SFADCo the electronics entrepreneurship programme.

33. cf Tom Barrington, who has been attempting in his IPA work to promote an appreciation of the importance of autonomous regional decision-making in an Irish context.

34. cf Raymond Crotty (Ireland in Crisis; Brandon 1986) for a rational approach to taxing the factors of production; labour being plentiful it makes sense to subsidise it, reducing the cost of its use; productive property (land, buildings, machinery) being scarce it makes sense to apply tax at a flat rate to encourage utilisation at maximum intensity. A social wage funded by a 'productive property' tax would encourage profitable production with cheap labour, recruited at a marginal economic wage (on top of the basic social wage). Thus cheap labour would not imply low income or low purchasing power. Such a taxation environment would be highly favourable to enterprise.

35. There is a parallel between the 'LMU' and the role of the 'Operations Room' in the cybernetic thinking of Stafford Beer; cf 'Brain of the Firm' (1972) and 'The Heart of Enterprise' (1979) (Wiley). For those unfamiliar with Stafford Beer's cybernetic approach to management science, the 'Operations Room' concept involves a regular structured interaction between an outward-looking development unit (whose job is to watch for creative opportunities in the environment, new technologies etc) and existing line-management, whose job it is to see that the existing system delivers. An important aspect of the 'outward-looking development unit' ('System Four' in Stafford Beer's nomenclature) is the maintenance of a theoretical model of the total system, so as to be able to try out innovative strategies in response to environmental opportunities.

36. One can easily visualise the development of an ongoing 'management game', with the technopole management (ie Faculty Deans, Dean of Postgraduate Research and BIC Manager) playing 'against' an outside environment having explicit roles for the State, Regional (government/development agency), local firms, remote firms; also the local cultural environment and the second-level feeder system. Policy variables would relate primarily to the postgraduate system (ie the interface with the BIC and with innovative firms); team development among postgraduates might emerge as a key policy variable. The parameters governing such a model would initially have to be conjectured, subject to ongoing amendment and refinement as they were measured in an ongoing monitoring process of the real system.

37. We have already referred (Note 14) to the emerging technology transfer agency network (TII) which has originated in the 'structural LFRs' or re-development regions, and to the French ARIST network which interfaces with it. An all-European inter-regional database could without much difficulty be built on a network such as this.

38. The regional ANVAR directories in France are a step in this direction, although they require some filtration to isolate the active centres. A directory originated by a pro-active technopole development unit would tend to concentrate on the active SMEs and their active research-centre contacts.

39. One can define a 'technet' as an active contact network between several technopoles, concerned with a defined problem-area or with a specific technology. For example, in Western France there is a 'medical imaging technet' between Rennes, Tours, Angers, Nantes and Brest, involving universities, hospitals and instrumentation firms; this was set up as a consciously planned development; it has subsequently picked up a linkage with Grenoble. cf Raphael Favier, Directeur des Relations Exterieures, Universite de Rennes I.

40. cf Notes 17 to 20 above for contacts in touch with pilot work in this area.

41. For example, problems of metal-forming in small-scale manufacturing, rather than large-scale metal production (as in the Iron and Steel RA); flexible robotics of use in manufacturing SME etc.

42. A demonstration project, or network of projects, might result from a Research Association lobbying; alternatively, an implanted demonstration project might create a demand for an RA to support the diffusion of the experience.

43. The TII network (see Note 14) has begun to service this process, though primarily in the 'structural' LFRs (ie mature regions needing re-development).

44. A more appropriate concept might be for a joint research 'network' rather than 'centre', with co-ordinated facilities in several LFRs. An appropriate problem-area for such a network might be the environment; under this label might emerge a scientific re-discovery of the traditional ecological approach to agriculture ('agriculture biologique'), in the search for alternatives to the CAP.

45. It will be necessary for periods abroad by researchers on the academic specialist networks to be appropriately linked as far as possible to regional development programmes, inter-SME collaborations etc. (See also Note 15 above.)

Roy H W Johnston PhD
Techne Associates
22 Belgrave Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6, Ireland
Phone 353-1-975027
13/10/86

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