Event Date: October 18, 2013 - 4:30 pm

MICHELE MASTROENI, University of Edinburgh.

Presented by CIPS, the International Political Economy Network (IPEN) and the Centre for European Studies.
Free. In English. Registration is not required. Seating is limited and available on a first come, first served basis.

The encouragement of innovation in European regions has been the subject of a series of European Commission initiatives and policy recommendations. The goal is to tap into the power of innovation to push the European economy past the current economic crisis and allow every region in Europe to benefit based on regions’ own innovative capacity and European-wide sharing of knowledge and technology. However, as of yet no proposed approach has emerged that provides clear, effective and widely accepted guidance for policy makers. This presentation will identify some of the limitations facing innovation policy in Europe and put forward an approach to overcome the limitations facing innovation policy useful to both policymakers and industry. The approach is applicable to regions beyond Europe, and implications for Canadian provinces will be discussed.

Dr. Mastroeni is currently an Innogen Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh where he works on projects whose goals are to improve policymakers’ ability to assess their country/region’s capacities in a high tech sector, and develop policy processes suitable to their specific context. While much of the empirical work has focused on the biotechnology sector, the approach has been designed to address a variety of knowledge-intensive sectors. Before moving to the UK, he was a Senior Policy Advisor for the Ministry of Research and Innovation in Ontario, Canada, where he managed research funding programs for local universities and research institutes, as well as provided policy advice on various issues.