Technology, Market and Company Journeys: How Can We Help Them Succeed? - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 199

group and helps to create new markets or facilitate access to existing or new
markets which is described in Fig. 2 as demand.
In this process the production of new ideas and the qualified human resources
that can interpret ideas and technologies and translate them into a business model
needs to be in place. Without this capacity to absorb ideas some of the elements in
any technology, company, or market journey are more difficult to achieve. The
process then relies on the ability to diffuse the ideas from these generators into the
business community and society and that the ideas that are created find markets
that are prepared to utilise the outputs.
Experience has shown that science parks and their host organisations can play a
central role in these systems. Factors which help to give this lead to science parks
include the brand value, the support they receive because of the broad range of
stakeholders which they attract, the presence of on site management that provides
the resource to assist in developing the site as a centre for connecting ideas with
people through their access to networks and finally their pre and full incubation
activities.
Today with shrinking public sector funding available for general business
support, government is looking for efficiencies in their spend but still want to
realise their value propositions for science parks. This shift in the balance of public
expenditure provides science and technology parks with an opportunity to estab-
lish and maintain the role of leadership in supporting innovative companies.
To do this the largest parks in a region should try to create connectivity in order
to provide a central management support programme for their region. Suggestions
to support that include modern video conferencing techniques to link all the parks
in a region to provide for example business education and business development
programmes.
Innovation governance lies at the heart of innovation systems. This represents
the kind of activities which create the right macro-environment that supports
business formation and development. Examples of factors which are important in
this environment include: creating a good tax environment for investors in com-
panies whether they are active in the management of the company or external
investors, making funds available to support the stages of the technology, company
and market journeys, establishing a regulatory environment that does not over
burden businesses, and creating a regulatory environment which supports enter-
prise, helps to create markets and does not stifle competition by creating for
example state run monopolies or prevent enterprise.
4 Functional Links on Science Parks Concerned
with Capacity Building and Supporting Innovation
A macro view of the process that is supported by science and technology parks is
characterised in Fig. 4 .
The elements, activities and linkages characterised in this figure pull science
parks away from discovery activities in knowledge generators. The bulk of the