1

Policies for Institutional Intermediaries in the

Bioeconomy

David Castle

Why Worry?

Because there is evidence that biotech innovation (SMEs) has for many years been treated as a parallel to ICT innovation

Models of bioeconomy R&D are in flux Renewed interest in regional + industrial

policy

Yet bioeconomy policies are technology focused but not focused on the (non-technological) determinants of innovation

2

Meaning:

•means that whatever is done to produce food/fuel/feed/fibre has to be ‘sustainable’

•intensification

•‘doing more with less’

•social change

Sustainable Bioeconomy

This question:

•is not primarily about material preconditions

•correctly identifies innovation as a process

•innovation ≠ products and services

•focus on those activities that are determinants of innovation

How to Sustain the Bioeconomy?

System of innovation

“all important economic, social,

political, organizational, and other

factors that influence the

development, diffusion, and use

of innovations” (Edquist 1997: 14)

Edquist on Innovation

“Organizations are formal structures with an explicit purpose and they are consciously created. (Edquist and Johnson 1997).”

“They are players or actors. Some important organisations in SIs are companies (which can be suppliers, customers or competitors in relation to other companies), universities, venture capital organisations and public innovation policy agencies. (Edquist 2001)”

Organisations

“Institutions are sets of common habits, routines, established practices, rules, or laws that regulate the relations and interactions between individuals, groups and organisations (Edquist and Johnson 1997).”

“They are the rules of the game. Examples of important institutions in SIs are patent laws and norms influencing the relations between universities and firms. (Edquist 2001)”

Institutions

Between organisations• learning (market or non-market)

Between institutions• conflict of laws and norms

Between institutions and organisations• mutually embedded• one creates the other• differentiation

Interactions and Functions

“There may also be important interactions between different institutions, e.g. between patent laws and informal rules concerning exchange of information between firms.

Institutions of different kinds may support and reinforce each other, but they may also contradict and be in conflict with each other.” (Edquist 2001)

Differentiation

Differentiation and Open Innovation

Are the organisations and institutions tasked with sustained bioeconomy…

…supporting and reinforce each other?

or

…contradicting and conflicting with each other?

Four main sources of controversy:

1. Distributional inequities / injustice associated with ownership

2. Principled objections to life science patents

3. Distortion of norms of science

4. Instrumental objections about negative impact on innovation

Turbulence: Life Science Patents

Gene Patents Deter Innovation

Genomics in Medicine (2010) 12(4): S1–S2.

Methods Patents Deter Innovation

Nature Reviews Genetics (2012) 13:441-8

14

Early IP Blocks Future Innovation

J Pol Ec 2013

Unclear Systemic Effects of IP

Overstatement of Role of Patents

Brüstle v. Greenpeace

Mayo v. Prometheus

19

AMP et al v. Myriad Genetics

Open Source (Linus Thorvald)

Open Science (Cambia)

Open Access (PLoS / RCUK)

Open Innovation (Chesbrough)

OECD

• Creating a more accessible pre-competitive science base;

• Enabling multiple independent innovators to work on the same problem;

• Knowledge management where innovations are strategically transferred in and out of the firm

OECD KNM and ‘Open’

“…leverage innovative

capacity by creating

interconnected webs of

knowledge that exploit

external expertise.”

OECD KNM

New organisations- combinations of VC, management and IP brokering

New institutions- institutionalisation of open innovation credo

The Rise of Intermediaries

Huck Institutes (Penn State)

Scottish Enterprise

Edinburgh BioQuarter

IP Group

U Sydney Charles Perkins Centre

University of Sydney Sydnovate

BioPontis Alliance

Velocity

Triple Helix

• TTOs are in jeopardy

• Firm-centric open innovation and institution / organisational open innovation

• Dynamics of inventors’ / innovators’ context is changing but a framework for analysing determinants of institutional dynamics is missing

• Organisational and institutional dynamics are increasingly differentiated

Trajectory of Open Innovation

Organisations

• Proliferating

• Differentiating

• Large Scale

• Concentrating

• Responding to incentives

Differentiation in Intermediaries

Institutions

• Proliferating

• Differentiating

• Complex

• Diffusing

• Creating incentives

Will bioeconomy be sustained by

policies that recognize and support

the development and refinement of

our system of organisations and

institutions, with their diverse and

differentiated array of functions?

Question for Discussion

36

37