Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
with an account of the project-based development of science parks and associated
developments, such as business and innovation centres and technology parks,
through to the development of more strategic approaches to encouraging innovative
milieu, such as the technopolis policy, science cities, regional innovation systems
and 'smart' cities. This account is followed by an assessment of the regional
development models and analyses that have underpinned the ideas and practice, an
assessment that provides insights into the future role that such approaches and public
policy might play in the future, and the limits to this in a new global order seeking
greater sustainability. The final section begins to map out and give articulation to
what a new strategic approach to science cities might entail.
1 Science Parks, Science Cities and Regional
Development Practices
Komninos (
1997
) has suggested that the first phase of science and technology
parks development occurred within Western Europe at beginning of the 1970s, and
was based on a rather experimental approach, notably the science parks in Cam-
bridge (England), Heriot-Watt (Scotland), and Sophia Antipolis (France). These
initial schemes were often the outcome of specific local factors (Massey, Quintas
and Wield
1992
), but governments at local, regional and national scales were
quick and numerous in identifying these as possible models for dealing with the
then rapidly growing economic crises associated with de-industrialisation; and the
need to address flagging national economic performances with respect to tech-
nology-based development, then dominated by the USA and Japanese-based
production blocs. Komninos (
1997
) thus identifies a second phase of science and
technology practice beginning in the 1980s, when it is possible to identify more
than 100 parks being set up throughout Western Europe (see Table
1
), or more
specifically the European Union (EU). He suggests that these projects were often
connected to wider political and economic frameworks, concerned with productive
restructuring, the disintegration of productive capacities, the rise of small busi-
nesses and the new demands for R&D, innovation and producer services. Studies
of this period of regional development all point to the significant variety in the
purpose and scale of projects, varying from small business incubators such as
business and innovation centres (BiCs) officially supported by EU financial
instruments, to large physical and land-use developments seeking to significantly
replace old productive systems or to create new economic spaces or growth poles.
Common components have been found within these developments in practice
(Monck et al.
1998
):
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