Periodic Report Summary - TARGET (Targeted R&D policy)
The main goal of the TARGET project was to provide a guide, referred to as the 'toolkit', for policymakers who wished to formulate and implement targeted Research and development (R&D) policies.
The toolkit would enable a country or region to develop and implement targeted policies successfully as well as to take concrete policy making decisions. It would contain a structured and valorised set of guidelines and recommendations for diversifying a country's policy mix, taking into account the unique characters of its innovation, R&D system and geopolitical reality. In order to achieve the above goals, TARGET project aimed for the following objectives:
1. identifying the policy capabilities that were required in order to formulate successful targeted R&D policies;
2. identifying coordination mechanisms between the different mix of policies within a targeted policy.
Due to radical changes in the global environment which manifested during the post 2000 period, it was emphasised that countries needed to redefine their proper mix of R&D policies (refer to Avimelech and Teubal, 2008). These changes included an ever-enhancing complexity of economic systems at both local and global scales, the emergence of new technological areas resulting in enhanced turbulence, dynamism and radical uncertainty and the rise of new, important players in Asia including China, India and other countries. These changes exposed business sectors to major threats on the one hand, while introducing them to various new opportunities on the other hand.
Policy makers face significant challenges in such an environment and are required to target subsequent opportunities by enabling or promoting the business sector to take advantage of them. Existing horizontal R&D policies, focussed on promoting R&D activity in individual firms, often lack in this respect. Thus, current and future scenarios require not only the design of new policies but also the adoption of an entirely new type of policy process, namely targeted R&D, as noted by Teubal, 2008. While market failure justifies the use of horizontal R&D policies, both system failures and system imperfections require targeted R&D policies in order to be solved. The central idea behind targeting is to leverage existing high quality market forces for the purpose of accomplishing a country's strategic priorities.
Therefore, as mentioned, the main goal of the project was to produce a toolkit for policymakers. In order to do so, three distinctive phases of the project were planned to be carried out. The first, i.e. the study of successful cases, would include, as its name indicated, the study of different cases that were recognised in the literature as successful implementations of targeted policies. In the second phase, titled the study of gaps, the research team would concentrate on the countries participating in the consortium and study each country's attempt at promoting biotechnology. This would enable the research team to contrast the successful cases with each country's experience and learn about possible gaps and barriers to implementation. After the completion of phase two, and based on the knowledge base that would be created thus far, the research team would be able to design the toolkit. The third phase, the so called testing the toolkit, was planned to ensure that the toolkit was applicable enough. This phase would consist of policy exercises that would exploit the toolkit to formulate policy for Lithuania and Slovenia.
The first year of the project saw the successful completion of both first and second project phases, namely the study of successful cases and the evolution of consortium countries. During the first phase, study of successful cases, the following cases were selected as examples of successful planning and implementing targeted R&D policies:
1. Singapore
2. North Carolina
3. medicon valley in Sweden and Denmark and
4. Scotland and Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Each case was evaluated and studied by the research team, both by reviewing available literature as well as by visiting the sites themselves and interviewing policymakers and private enterprises.
The toolkit would enable a country or region to develop and implement targeted policies successfully as well as to take concrete policy making decisions. It would contain a structured and valorised set of guidelines and recommendations for diversifying a country's policy mix, taking into account the unique characters of its innovation, R&D system and geopolitical reality. In order to achieve the above goals, TARGET project aimed for the following objectives:
1. identifying the policy capabilities that were required in order to formulate successful targeted R&D policies;
2. identifying coordination mechanisms between the different mix of policies within a targeted policy.
Due to radical changes in the global environment which manifested during the post 2000 period, it was emphasised that countries needed to redefine their proper mix of R&D policies (refer to Avimelech and Teubal, 2008). These changes included an ever-enhancing complexity of economic systems at both local and global scales, the emergence of new technological areas resulting in enhanced turbulence, dynamism and radical uncertainty and the rise of new, important players in Asia including China, India and other countries. These changes exposed business sectors to major threats on the one hand, while introducing them to various new opportunities on the other hand.
Policy makers face significant challenges in such an environment and are required to target subsequent opportunities by enabling or promoting the business sector to take advantage of them. Existing horizontal R&D policies, focussed on promoting R&D activity in individual firms, often lack in this respect. Thus, current and future scenarios require not only the design of new policies but also the adoption of an entirely new type of policy process, namely targeted R&D, as noted by Teubal, 2008. While market failure justifies the use of horizontal R&D policies, both system failures and system imperfections require targeted R&D policies in order to be solved. The central idea behind targeting is to leverage existing high quality market forces for the purpose of accomplishing a country's strategic priorities.
Therefore, as mentioned, the main goal of the project was to produce a toolkit for policymakers. In order to do so, three distinctive phases of the project were planned to be carried out. The first, i.e. the study of successful cases, would include, as its name indicated, the study of different cases that were recognised in the literature as successful implementations of targeted policies. In the second phase, titled the study of gaps, the research team would concentrate on the countries participating in the consortium and study each country's attempt at promoting biotechnology. This would enable the research team to contrast the successful cases with each country's experience and learn about possible gaps and barriers to implementation. After the completion of phase two, and based on the knowledge base that would be created thus far, the research team would be able to design the toolkit. The third phase, the so called testing the toolkit, was planned to ensure that the toolkit was applicable enough. This phase would consist of policy exercises that would exploit the toolkit to formulate policy for Lithuania and Slovenia.
The first year of the project saw the successful completion of both first and second project phases, namely the study of successful cases and the evolution of consortium countries. During the first phase, study of successful cases, the following cases were selected as examples of successful planning and implementing targeted R&D policies:
1. Singapore
2. North Carolina
3. medicon valley in Sweden and Denmark and
4. Scotland and Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Each case was evaluated and studied by the research team, both by reviewing available literature as well as by visiting the sites themselves and interviewing policymakers and private enterprises.