Concept of city innovation sytsem

1. City Innovation Systems:
The Next Horizon in Innovation Studies for Southeast Asia
Apiwat Ratanawaraha
Pun-Arj Chairatana
Presented at the 8th GLOBELICS International Conference
1-3 November 2010
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2. Background
“Towards Innovative, Liveable, and Prosperous
Asian Megacities” Project
– a three-year project funded by the International
Development Research Centre (IDRC)
– 6 countries, 6 megacities in Southeast Asia
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3. Background
Current perspectives on innovation as studied and
practiced in Southeast Asia are not sufficient
– Imported models of national innovation systems from the
rich West where contexts and conditions are different
• Existing S&T agencies set up the standard Triple-Helix structure
– Focus on industrial and business innovations, not addressing
current developmental problems
• Enterprise development and little on human development
• Development of NIS has little to do with infrastructure and urban
development
– Focus on the supply side, but not much on how they are
demanded and consumed

4. Cities continue to be the centers of developmental
problems that need innovative solutions
– Megacities continue to become bigger even with changing
demographic changes
• ageing, smaller household sizes
– But urban planning and development practices still rely on
the comprehensive/master plan model
• Focus on existing problems, little on the future
• Little discussion on systemic learning, risks, future scenarios
– Tend to ignore production structure and technological and
innovation dimensions
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5. Project goals
• Future innovation policies
– more comprehensive and inclusive, paying
attention to developmental challenges that affect
the urban quality of life, particularly for the poor
• Future urban policies
– integrate the dynamism of city innovation systems
into the urban planning processes
Integration of Future + Urban + Innovation
Studies and Policies

6. Methodology
3-phase research process
1. Disentangle ASEAN innovation systems
- National and sectoral innovation systems in 6 countries
2. Define city innovations and their systems
- Case studies of city innovations in Bangkok, Ho Chi
Minh City, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and
Singapore (focus of our presentations today)
3. Design future city innovation systems
- Foresight and scenario building
- Innovations that address future city scenarios

7. Methodology
How do we conduct our research?
• Questions for building conceptual framework
– What is a city innovation?
– What is a city innovation system?
• What makes it different from national/sectoral /regional
systems?
• What are the components in such a system?
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8. In defining a city innovation…
– People have to be at the center of a city innovation:
innovation as if people matter
– Commercial innovations as well as social innovations
– Focus on innovations that address urban challenges
– Individual and community of innovators, not just formal
organizations (firms, gov’t agencies, universities, etc)
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9. In analyzing city innovation systems, we start from using the
existing framework used widely in the literature:
1. Key actors/agencies
2. Interactions and linkages among actors
3. Systemic learning
4. Policies and implementation processes
Plus what we already know about the six dimensions of
innovation…
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10. Six dimensions of city innovations
Paradigm Position
Process Institution
City
Product Service
Innovation

11. In addition, we propose…
Human-space ecology as a way to analyze city
innovation systems
– Cognitive space
– Information/communication space
– Physical space
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12. Working definitions
a CITY INNOVATION
“A new or improved solution that contributes towards
enhanced liveability, prosperity, and equity of the
city.”
a CITY INNOVATION SYSTEM
“The human-space ecology that promotes the
creation, adoption, and diffusion of city innovations”
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13. Criteria
• Novelty: A solution that is relatively new to the megacity in
question.
• Impacts: A solution that has already had noticeable impacts
on prosperity and liveability in your megacity OR exhibits
potential to effect substantial changes to prosperity and
liveability
• Equity: A solution that does not worsen the income
distribution and social inequality in the megacity. A city
innovation should reach a broader base in the urban
population, rather than benefitting only the rich.
• Environmental sustainability: A solution that is aligned with
the principle of environmental sustainability.
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14. • Economic and financial feasibility: A solution that is economically
and financially feasible. As we think ahead about how to diffuse a
city innovation from one megacity to another and/or to replicate it
on a mass scale, the costs of creating, adopting, and diffusing an
innovation becomes critical.
• Transferability: A solution that is socially, culturally, or
geographically neutral is more likely to diffuse quickly and widely.
However, successful implementation of an innovative idea may rely
heavily on social and cultural contexts.
• Political acceptability: Any solution that is to be adoption in a mass
scale need political acceptance, which means people whose lives
are affected participate directly in the decision-making process.
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15. 1. Analysis of city innovations
• Case studies of innovative solutions
– Select areas of urban challenges for comparative studies
– Select innovative solutions that create value for liveablity,
prosperity, and equity in the city in question
– Data collection: ask experts, documentary research, etc.
• Analyze them using the city innovation-system framework
– Creation, adoption, and diffusion processes
– The value(s) the city innovation creates
• Liveability , prosperity, equity, security, etc
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16. Items for case studies
• Goal achievement
– Prosperity, equity, liveability
• Dimensions of innovation
– Product, process, position, paradigm, service, institution
• Innovators
– individual and communities of innovators
• Human-space ecology of the innovation
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17. 2. Analysis of a city innovation system
• The framework to analyze city innovation systems:
• key actors/agencies
• Interactions and linkages among actors
• Systemic learning
• policies and implementation procedures
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18. Meso-level analysis
• Investment-related policies and institutions
– Are there investment policies and intermediaries at the
city level that support the innovation?
• particularly those on urban infrastructure for knowledge creation,
adoption & diffusion
– How are city innovations supported financially?
• Institutional arrangements
– Those that support the innovation itself
– Those that link innovation policies w/ other development
policies
• Policy implementation processes
– that integrate innovation and urban policies at the
national and local levels
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19. Micro-level analysis
• Innovators
– Who are they? What do they do?
• Individual, community, and institutional
– Are they the original owners of ideas? Or the ones who
implement and diffuse them?
– Who else are involved in the process?
• Leadership
• Which actors are crucial to determining policy directions
and implementation? How so?
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20. Case Studies
Indonesia Malaysia Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam
1.Maisonette 1. Low-cost 1. Gawad 1. Medical 1. Creative 1. Innovation
housing Housing Kalinga tourism industries in housing
project Community housing Project for the low
2. Creative 2. City income
2.Information 1. Redevelop- 2. UP-Ayala precincts and Innovation of
-sharing ment of KL Technology art policies Public Arts 2. Innovation
practice in City Centre Park in Solid
government 2. Art-led Waste
3. Innovation 3. Medical Community Collection
3. “Waste Initiative in Tourism Revitalization Service
Bank” project City
Governance

21. Preliminary results
Overall lessons from the case studies
• By expanding the analytical scope, we are able to capture the
dynamic process that may be more innovative than
traditionally considered (e.g., stand-alone product, process,
service innovations)
• We find co-evolution of various aspects of innovation
• Clearer pictures about the links between “city innovations”
and “traditional” innovations
– Identification of actors and types of institutions beyond
the existing innovation literature
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22. – Never just about a new product, process, service, or
organization
– Always a combination of different aspects of innovation for
an innovative idea to materialize
– Participation of key stakeholders, esp. users, is key
– Change of perceptions/mindsets is fundamental
– Acceptance of diversity and differences is important
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23. Actors
– Beyond triple helix:
• Local government
• Non-governmental organizations
• Consultants/donors
• Lobbyists
• Community and social groups
– Beyond open innovation:
• Never without partnerships and cooperation
• Various forms of, and mechanisms for, negotiation and
deliberation are required institutions
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24. Investment
• Some innovations require very large investment
• Infrastructure: large initial costs, public goods and
externalities, low margins, long lifespan
• Irreversibility of investment
• The “Valley of Death” before implementation
– Inherent problems in financing, funding, and delivery of
innovative urban solutions
• Structure for investment decisions are highly
complex
• Multi-party, multi-purpose, multi-modal, multi-strategy…
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25. Incentives
• Reward
• Market (monetary) incentives
• Voluntarism/passion
• Distribution of rewards/benefits from the innovation
• Punishments
• Punishments on free riders
• Partial exclusion from future rewards
• Forced exit
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26. Institutions
– Features of national innovation systems exist
• Gov’t agencies, firms, universities, R&D institutes
• But, still mostly function-based innovation systems
– Accumulation and adaptation of institutions as the
system grows
– Learning
• Trials & errors not uncommon at the beginning
• DUI – Doing, Using, and Interacting
• Actors’ learning through deliberation and negotiation
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27. • Political factors are unavoidable
– Institutional and political barriers to implementation and
diffusion of innovation are major factors
– Capturing an appropriate political window of
opportunity is key to implementation of innovative ideas
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28. • In terms of institutions, city innovation systems face
two levels of dilemma
– 1st order: provision of a city innovation itself
– 2nd order: free rider of the mechanisms/institutions that
govern such provision
• We may know what appropriate institutions we need,
but we face a tough hurdle, i.e., how to “supply” them
• For a city innovation to be long lasting and widely
adopted, it has to overcome these dilemma.
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29. Refined definitions
• A city innovation is a dynamic, deliberative, co-
evolutionary process that creates a new location and
context-specific solution to an existing urban
problem
• A city innovation system is a set of institutions that
govern the ecology for human-space interactions
that promotes the creation, adoption, and diffusion
of city innovations
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30. Case-study presentations
1. Manila – Dr. Aida Velasco
2. Kuala Lumpur – Dr. K. Thiruchelvam
3. Bangkok – Dr. Pun-arj Chairatana
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