Innovation Intermediaries for Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Case Studies and Perspectives

Book excerpt: Innovation intermediaries have been a central part of regional economic and innovation policies for several decades. During this time a plethora of different models have emerged shaped by cultural, contextual, policy and ecosystem variances. The key objective for policy-makers has been to create an ecosystem and culture within a region that harnesses and develops the next generation of high-tech firms and scales existing SMEs, with the hope rebalancing a modern economy. The science park and university incubator intermediary has grown into one of the most widespread intermediary models and both developed and developing nations have invested substantial resources into this model. This book comprises insightful case studies into innovation intermediaries in the USA - such as Georgia Institute of Technology, Europe and China. Differences in the ecosystem development, lessons learned - both exemplars and impediments to innovation are illustrated in this book. Several spin-off models, practices, mechanisms and entrepreneurship programmes are featured. We hope that this book will be of value to students of innovation and entrepreneurship, regional innovation policy-makers and practitioners.