• STI Policy Review
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.40-65
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• 2016

Knowledge plays a more important role in promoting entrepreneurship in the current information-led society than it did during the age of industrialization. Many recent studies found that entrepreneurship stimulates and generates innovation and economic growth. In response to the issues of long-term low growth, the Japanese government implemented several policies to encourage universities initiate entrepreneurial activities. This paper examines Japanese policies since 2014 that support universities in providing various programs for developing global entrepreneurs. Thirteen academic institutes were beneficiaries of three-year funding since the fiscal year of 2014. Each university designed its own educational programs according to their own contexts, built various forms of innovation ecosystems with domestic as well as international partner organizations, and offered entrepreneurship training courses or innovation workshops for companies to sustain its programs through broadening their funding bases. Due to the interdisciplinary nature and short history in operating the programs so far, it is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of the programs. However, each participating university accumulated knowledge and experience while carrying out their various programs, suggesting important new directions for policymakers and education program designers in facilitating entrepreneurship and innovation.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.146-173
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• 2015

This study explores how to reconcile science and policy in the wind energy sector by providing a conceptual framework for better understanding evidence-based policymaking (EBPM). Regarding this framework, the core issue is to discover how knowledge is formed over time, and which factors affect this knowledge formation. Comparative cases of wind industry emergence in Spain and Britain are examined. This analysis shows that knowledge formation initially starts in the scientific arena in parallel with its formation in the practical, and is followed by political knowledge formation near the beginning of commercial projects. Regarding knowledge formation, three more comparisons are made between wind industry emergence in Spain and Britain: the different approaches to R&D projects, the different adoptions of supporting measures, and the different ways of coping with public opposition. The factors affecting the comparisons are mainly perceptions of energy supply, nuclear power, environment and science and technology. Communication and unfamiliarity are likely to affect the comparisons in EBPM.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.62-86
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• 2017

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) system is one of the major institutions for incentivizing innovation. However, a strong IPR regime does not necessarily encourage innovation every time. This is because a variety of factors come into play in configuring the ways the IPR system interacts with the dynamics of innovation. In the present study, we examine whether different degrees of absorptive capacity at the industry level bring about heterogeneous effects of a strong IPR regime on the innovation capability of innovators across different industries in developing country. Using the case of the 1986 IPR reform in Korea, which permitted patenting pharmaceutical products and copyrighting computer programs, we analyze the quality of patents produced by Korean applicants between 1982 and 1991. Our analysis finds no evidence that the IPR reform improved the innovation capability of innovators in the two aforementioned sectors, but rather affected their patenting behavior differently.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.69-88
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• 2010

This paper explores the determinants of the innovation impact of publicly funded R&D projects along three broad dimensions, namely project, firm and market-related factors. In addition to these factors we examine the attributes of the research result per se and aspects of the commercialization process. The observations from empirical and qualitative analyses are based on R&D projects funded by the Fifth and Sixth Research Framework Programmes of the European Union. Firm size, prior experience, innovation culture, the nature of the project itself, explicit intension to commercialize, consortium management and strategy are the factors with the strongest effect on project success, defined in terms of product/process innovation and/or technical knowledge creation. The paper provides important implications for the organization, objectives, and management of public programmes that fund R&D and for project and participant selection.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.35-59
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• 2016

The strategic importance of innovation ecosystems has received increased attention from both the academic and policy perspectives. However, there is only limited empirical evidence on the importance of these ecosystems from the perspective of younger firms. This study focuses on the role of ecosystems for young innovative companies (YICs) and is based on a unique set of phone survey data from Finland and South Korea. The results are threefold: (1) Finnish YICs participate more actively in ecosystems than Korean YICs; (2) on average, Korean YICs report to have experienced lower ecosystem impact compared to Finnish YICs; (3) in both countries, key organizations of the ecosystems are represented on the board of directors in about one-third of the sample firms.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.94-109
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• 2017

Entrepreneurship is a creation of new combinations of goods and services. Today, every aspect of business operations has been changing, which we call development. The conventional business included production and manufacturing of goods and serving things the customer needed. Today, the business has changed form so that the demands of customers are shaped by the good or service which has been created by the businesses. Entrepreneurship in Mongolia is not a new concept but nowadays the number of entrepreneurs in Mongolia has grown sharply. Mongolia was a nomadic culture during its history and is probably the only nomadic culture left in the world today. Mongolian herders are the largest and the most powerful representation of successful entrepreneurs in Mongolia. Another practice of herders in the world are in Australia. Along with a comparison of the policy and government support system of Australia, this study intends to assess how 6 factors of the entrepreneurial ecosystem fit herders in Mongolia. As a result of this assessment, we propose policy to support the entrepreneurial mechanism of herders and identify cultural factors which support the existence of herding.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.17-39
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• 2016

Despite the importance of university-industry collaboration, issues pertaining to the characteristics of collaborating firms, their modes of interaction, and the relationship between these modes and outcomes are not well-researched. The impact of country's development on these issues is also unclear. This case study examines Japan and Thailand-respectively representing developed and developing countries-and features the following key findings: 1) the characteristics of firms affect modes, with large Japanese firms being more collaborative with universities, whereas Thai SMEs significantly collaborate more with universities; 2) the relationship between modes in Thai firms is stronger than those of Japanese firms because in Thailand, perhaps due to weak technological capacity, R&D collaboration is conducted alongside university consultancy services; and 3) in Japan, R&D and human resource development collaboration lead to product innovation, whereas different outcomes are expected from different modes in Thailand. Apparently, trivial informal collaborations do have significant impact on innovation.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.45-54
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• 2011

This paper develops a recursive multinomial probit model and describes its estimation method. The recursive multinomial probit model is an extension of a recursive bivariate probit model. The main difference between the two models is that a single decision among two or more alternatives can be considered in each choice equation in the proposed model. The recursive multinomial probit model is developed based on a standard framework of the multinomial probit model and a Bayesian approach with a Gibbs sampling is adopted for the estimation. The simulation exercise with artificial data sets is showed that the model performed well. Since the recursive multinomial probit model can be applied to analyze the causal relationship between discrete dependent variables with more than two outcomes, the model can play an important role in extending the methodology of the causal relationship analysis in innovation research.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.54-69
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• 2015

Although there is progress in developing green sectors in North America and East Asia, the key challenge facing the expansion of economy-wide green innovation and structural change in these regions is the absence of relevant policy follow-up to the green stimulus enacted during the Great Recession. The boost to green sectors provided by such measures is waning quickly, given that much of the green stimulus focused on energy efficiency. The biggest obstacles to sustaining green growth in North America and East Asiaare major market disincentives, especially the under-pricing of fossil fuels and market failures that inhibit green innovation. A three-part strategy to overcome these obstacles would involve: first, removing fossil fuel subsidies; second, employing market-based instruments to further reduce the social costs of fossil fuel use; and third, allocating any resulting revenue to public support for green innovation and investments. Such a strategy would ensure that green growth is not about promoting niche green sectors but instigating economy-wide innovation and structural transformation in North America and East Asia.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 2013

As the value and role of intellectual property increases in our knowledge-based economy, countries around the world have exerted various efforts to secure, utilize, and protect their intellectual property. The present study diagnoses the level of IP infrastructure of major OECD countries and analyzes their characteristics and impact. According to the diagnosis, the US, Switzerland, and Germany form a leading group followed by the mid-level countries of Korea, Ireland, Australia, and France, with Spain and Italy in the bottom group. In contrast to Korea's competitiveness in S&T and R&D infrastructures, its competitiveness in IP infrastructure is lower than the OECD average. This is thought to be due to Korea's IP infrastructure being hastily formed under the influence of international pressures rather than having been gradually built up by internal needs. A TFP analysis of the impact of IP infrastructure on economic growth shows IP infrastructure positively influences economic growth. Though this analysis is limited due to inability to secure sufficient data and indicators, it is a useful guide for understanding the nature and key characteristics of IP infrastructure.