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Week of March 24 - 30, 2008

The Creative and Innovation Economy in Great Britain

The UK is bubbling over with new ideas about innovation and the creative economy. In his budget plan released earlier this month, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a new plan to support and stimulate Britain’s creative economy. There is a good reason for this emphasis--Britain’s creative sectors have grown twice as fast as the overall British economy. The plan outlines twenty-six different commitments where various British government agencies and other partners will act to support creative sectors. For example, the plan calls for a new “Find Your Talent” program that will expose British youth to five hours of culture and creative training every week. By 2013, the plan envisions creation of 5,000 new youth apprenticeship position in Britain’s creative industries. In other areas, the British government will work to uncover barriers to more widespread broadband use and also strengthen current intellectual property protection rules.

A strong rationale for the Creative Britain initiative can be found in a new report from the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts (NESTA). The NESTA study reviews the latest thinking on the linkages between creative industries and the broader innovation economy. It finds that creative linkages have a strong effect on some, but not all, dimensions of innovation behavior. The authors report that industries that spend double the amount of money (from 3% up to 6% of output) are twenty five percent more likely to introduce new product innovations. Research findings into the causes of this effect still remain uncertain, but the study suggests that supply chain linkages to creative sector might have a crucial impact in Britain’s overall innovation ecosystem.

Finally, Britain’s Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) has also unveiled several new projects as part of the Brown government’s new budget plans. In a new White Paper entitled Innovation Nation, the DIUS proposes a series of steps to make Britain the world’s leader in supporting innovation. Among the various recommendations are the following:

• Require every government agency to develop an Innovation Procurement plan that details how the agency will use its purchasing power to support innovation.

• Provide innovation vouchers to small firms who can use them to build partnerships with universities and other knowledge institutions.

• Create a Public Services Innovation Laboratory to test and disseminate new ideas for innovation in the public sector.

Download the March 2008 United Kingdom Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport report, Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy.

Download the 2008 National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (UK) report, Creating Innovation: Do the Creative Industries Support Innovation in the Wider Economy?, by Hasan Bakhshi, Eric McVittie, and James Simmie.

Download the March 2008 United Kingdom Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills White Paper, "Innovation Nation."

Eco-Patent Commons

An interesting new initiative from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development is seeking to generate and disseminate new ideas for sustainable development. The Eco-Patent Commons is an on-line database of existing patents that corporations and individuals have made available, without royalties, to anyone with an interest in using the new technologies in ways that benefit the environment. The website contains a searchable database of eco-friendly patents that are available for public use.

Learn more about World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Eco-Patent Commons program.

The Next Generation... Ready to Lead?

A new survey sponsored by the Casey and Meyer Foundations and IdeaList.org assesses future directions for non-profit leadership. Researchers surveyed 6,000 emerging non-profit leaders and asked them to discuss the pros and cons of heading a non-profit organization. In general, the news is pretty sobering. While young non-profit staffers love their work, they also see that non-profit leadership is often a thankless task with long hours, low pay, and limited outside support networks. These perceptions sometimes make it difficult to recruit and retain talented non-profit executives. And, demographic pressures may worsen the situation, as a shrinking workforce will intensify the war for talent between businesses, government agencies and non-profits. The report recommends that current non-profit leaders pay more attention to the leadership pipeline by consciously working to mentor and groom new leaders and to create more attractive career opportunities for next generation leaders.

Download the 2008 report, “Ready to Lead: Next Generation Leaders Speak Out,” sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Meyer Foundation, and IdeaList.org.

Top States for Business Relocation and Expansion

Ohio and Illinois are the places to be--at least for major corporate expansions and relocations. These Midwestern states have traditionally been known for their manufacturing prowess, and that legacy has also created a lot of economic challenges. But, according to the latest rankings from Site Selection magazine, both states have done a good job in terms of diversifying their economies. Each year, Site Selection presents the Governor’s Cup to the state leaders who have garnered the most new corporate relocations and expansions in the previous year. Ohio, and its governor Ted Strickland, topped this year’s list with 395 site expansions or relocations in 2007. Other top contenders of the Governor’s Cup include (in rank order): Illinois, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas.

The article, “Victory Lap,” by Mark Arend, appears in the March 2008 issue of Site Selection.

The National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship is an initiative of the Public Forum Institute made possible by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. Through NDE-news, we bring you short summaries and analyses of various trends driving entrepreneurship around the world. Subscribe now to receive your weekly copy. Archived issues are available online.

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All stories © 2008 The Public Forum Institute
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