Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2019

Journal / Book Title

Global Transitions

Abstract

The direct top-down approach and indirect bottom-up approach are two ends of the spectrum in the role of government in developing an innovation ecosystem. Taking a hybrid approach, we develop the concept of the ecosystem enricher who fertilizes the interactions and linkages of multiple stakeholders in innovation ecosystems. In an in-depth case study of the Suzhou Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation District (SEID), we find that the local government has played an enricher role in directly driving university-industry connections from a mainly top-down approach. Yet many issues remain and more bottom-up policies are needed. We group these issues into three areas: priority setting in university development, university-industry collaborations, and innovation and entrepreneurship intermediaries. Our findings also highlight both the benefits and liabilities in the top-down approach of government policy in driving innovation ecosystems and how a hybrid of the top-down and bottom-up approach is needed.

DOI

10.1016/j.glt.2019.05.002

Rights

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Published Citation

Sun, S. L., Zhang, Y., Cao, Y., Dong, J., & Cantwell, J. (2019). Enriching innovation ecosystems: The role of government in a university science park. Global Transitions, 1, 104-119.

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