Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Park at the University of Durham. More recently, Newcastle, the largest city in the
region, has received ''science city status'', which means that it is earmarked for
support to develop science and technology facilities.
In short, both the emerged 'economic development industry' and technology
transfer offices in the North East of England consist on the one hand of centrally
led organisations and on the other hand of spontaneously appeared regional or-
ganisations, which often lack enough governmental aid. The multitude of organ-
isations and the lack of a regional elected body bear the dangers of too much
overlap and too little co-ordination and transparency (Duke et al.
2006
; Coenen
2007
), which also leads to a vulnerable position of technopoles in the overall
regional innovation support system.
4.3 Utrecht, the Netherlands
Although the province of Utrecht is seen as a relatively strong economic region if
employment and income indicators are used, it has weaknesses concerning the
innovativeness of SMEs and business start-up rates (IPO
2004
; Technopolis
2000
).
Looking at the sectoral composition, a relatively large number of people is
working in services, whereas manufacturing industry is clearly under-represented.
Apart from publishing and printing, all manufacturing industries in Utrecht are
under-represented, including medium-tech industries, such as the car industry and
chemical industries. Within service industries, financial services and business
consulting have the highest location quotients.
Syntens is not only considered as the main actor concerning innovation support
in Utrecht, it is in fact regarded as the main actor in the Netherlands (Hassink
1997
). This dense network of 18 centres, which was set up in 1988, is financed by
the central government and co-ordinated by a national clearing house. The Syntens
Centres are anchored in the region as their boards consist of regional decision-
makers from chambers of commerce, higher education institutes, public research
establishments and companies. Regional embeddedness of the individual centres is
seen as of great importance, since consultants of the individual centres should
know the local, mental and cultural characteristics of SMEs in order to be able to
build up trust relationships. The aim of the Syntens Centres is to support SMEs in
finding and applying technological knowledge that should help them to renew
production processes, products and services. The centres aim to link practical
problems of SMEs with the supply of technological knowledge. The centres do not
carry out any R&D themselves. The 150 consultants of the 15 centres, who all
have business experience, first try to solve problems they encounter in randomly
visited SMEs themselves. They do not approach clients with new technology or
new product ideas, but deliberately come ''empty-handed''. If consultants lack the
required expertise to help the firms themselves, they will refer to experts in other
Syntens Centres, companies, higher education institutes, public research estab-
lishments, management and engineering consultancies. Furthermore, the centres
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