Blast from the Past (1): Why Science & Technology Parks go Urban (2004)
In this series I am revisiting some earlier ideas on urban innovation. In this 2004 paper for Urbanistica Informazioni we predict the urbanization of innovation and the emergence of new infrastructures, operators and challenges (and showcase our work in developing Shanghai’s Biomedical District). We did well to predict the growing role of cities, the rise of the innovation district, that science & technology will go urban, and that all this would expose the lack of diversity in the innovation economy.
We were less successful at imagining quite how fast big tech would grow to dominate, how city halls tend to struggle with the delivery of strategy. Instead of planned innovation hubs, cities are better at producing a less intentional urban fabric that enables new operators like Civic Hall, New Lab and WeWork to effectively operate the fast-changing innovation ecosystems.
Why Science & Technology Parks go urban: Towards Embedded Innovation Environments
In the context of an increasingly knowledge intensive economy, city and regional governments across Europe face a dual challenge in bringing about the structural, societal as well as urban transformations of their territories in a rapidly globalizing context. Science and Technology Parks have long been considered catalysts for strengthening local research and innovation and they have been widely implemented as part of regional innovation strategies, embodying the attempt to literally ‘build’ the driving engines for the ‘globalized knowledge society’.
Yet, it seems that most Science Parks do not reach their ultimate goals, but rather serve other secondary objectives such as attracting inward investment, creating a vehicle for indirect subsidies, or raising property values of its neighbourhoods. Thus, some Science Parks have become symbols rather than real catalysts of a modernizing, high-tech society.
Nevertheless, Science Parks are high in demand. A recent study of Germany’s 440 municipalities showed that they are home to 362 Science & Technology Parks. Similar densities can be found across the world — making such Innovation Environments an increasingly common feature in territorial development.
Towards Urbanized Innovation Environments
After two generations of primarily suburban Science & Technology Park developments, we now observe a tendency of such Innovation Environments to ‘go urban’, aiming for better competitiveness, more sustainable urban development, and higher attractiveness as catalysts in the knowledge society. In the light of ever more homogenous approaches, it has been realized that the best source of differentiation is the city itself.
Underlying innovation models have themselves evolved bringing with them their requisite urban incarnations. First Generation Science Parks promote the Science Push from Universities into spin-off companies moving into surrounding dedicated industrial areas (i.e. Stanford). Second Generation Science Parks were driven by industry’s Science Pull, with major firms locating around leading research environments to extract scientific discoveries (i.e. Seoul, Singapore).
The emerging Third Generation Science Parks operate interactive models of innovation, embedded in diverse urban environments. In such areas, networks and systems of trust, the development of respective public, private or scientific partners, cultures of interpretation, degrees of public or institutional participation as well as the availability of financial/legal instruments all form an integral part of the innovation environment’s global function. Locational embeddedness is no longer just a feature, but a key success factor.
[This appears to be a common finding by researchers such as Paul Duguid, john seely brown, Saskia Sassen, Richard Florida among others. They all highlight the importance of the distinct conditionalities found in such innovation environments.]
Such rich innovation environments, in which spill-overs and cross-extraction of knowledge between agglomerated firms are pre-requisites for keeping pace with innovation, appear to behave like ‘ecologies of knowledge flows’, anchored as deeply in the distinct incarnation of each place as in an otherwise determinable generic set of socio-economic components.
Manuel Castells highlighted the dichotomy, or ‘schizophrenia between [the] two spatial logics’, of the space of flows and the placeness as a major societal challenge. The concept of the urbanized innovation environment challenges this separation, with its placeness being an integral part of its role in the global networks of innovation.
The continuous interplay between urban setting and globalized processes lies at the heart of many major tangible transformations that have occurred in Cities in recent years, affecting also the intangible frameworks of management and governance of cities, regions, their firms, universities, markets and borders.
Urbanized Innovation: A challenge to disciplinary organization and urban governance
Innovation Environments have become an urban issue, taken out of their isolated suburban setting and knocking on the city’s door. The repercussions of this urbanization can be felt across a wide spectrum of urban processes: infrastructures (socio-technical processes), (de)-regulation and internationalization of standards, urban morphology, real-estate asset values, clustering, place branding, quality of the environment, affordability, stakeholder involvement, accessibility, polarization of migration, among others.
These trends call for new inter-disciplinary approaches. Both traditional disciplinary boundaries and structures of urban governance are under increasing pressure to adapt their response to the changing realities. The challenge lies in the urbanization of the Science Park model: to integrate the urban spatial setting with its inherent openness, accessibility and democratic institutions with the highly managed innovation function of the Science Park.
Integrating the privatized management functions with the openness and accountability of the urban environment entails questions about Public-Private-Partnerships; new forms of urban governance; accountability; accessibility of opportunities by groups currently underrepresented in scientific careers (women, youth, economically disadvantaged, low wage immigrants); and new types of citizenship.
When considered as urban environments Science Parks tend to have dramatic short-comings in diversity, attractiveness, sustainability and cultural dynamism. At the same time they offer a wide range of management functions that can range from simple property management to complex advanced business services. What in their pioneering days seemed to be an acceptable trade-off, has today become a competitive disadvantage among the cities competing for firms, research institutions and increasingly also the talent that drives them — all of which, given the global range of offerings, are ever more discerning customers.
Increasing Specialization in increasingly open urban environments
Our better understanding of the spatial dimension of innovation emphasizes the increasing importance of location, with Hub Cities as the command, control and production sites linked and positioned strategically on highly specialized global ‘circuits’ of innovation. Today’s hubs are locations that effectively serve companies and their supporting institutions both locally and as ‘glocal’ bridges between local innovation environments and the global economy.
[The regional context is of major importance here, with hub cities often acting as ‘Search Engines’ for capabilities and specialized resources in a wider regional context.]
In other words, for cities to be successful innovation environments, it is important to recognize and enable those highly specialized global functions. Neither ‘Innovation’ nor ‘Knowledge’ are generic activities to be co-located in generic districts, but rather contain specializations that become increasingly focused also in their requirements.
Understanding these specializations also defuses the role of regional competition: the leading global hubs in a given sector are more likely to be collaborators (through division of specialized labour) than competitors as they specialize in unique capabilities and tap into global scientific and industrial networks.
[A recent study conducted by interlace-invent into 20 globally leading biomedical hubs showed the high degree of differentiation among the leading sites for innovation. This reflects the scientific and technological specialization in the industry, where the many sites are linked in a division of labour rather than competitors.]
Case Study Fenglin: Shanghai’s Urbanized Biomedical Innovation District
Together with German Architects and Planners HPP interlace-invent is currently [in 2004] developing the world’s first fully urbanized Biomedical Center at the heart of Shanghai’s historic Xuhui District. Fenglin Biomedical Center (FMC) is designed to offer a globally unique innovation environment integrating world-class research, advanced clinical environments and a high quality of life at the heart of one of the world’s most dynamic metropolis.
Contextualized within the global network of biomedical hubs, FMC is developed by a mutually supporting urban regeneration and innovation strategy. By careful insertions into the existing urban fabric, the substantial existing competences are complemented, creating a unique environment in which the urban spatial setting facilitates competitiveness whilst the global innovation activities provide unique socio-economic opportunities.
‘Fenglin: a healthy district’ is a holistic sustainable model for urban living, integrating social, economic and environmental development. High-quality green environments naturally regulate the climatic conditions as well as provide a continuous green landscape for recreation, mobility and healing. For those communities, on which the biomedical success will rely, Fenglin will offer a globally unmatched life-style proposition: Healthy and sustainable urban living and working at the heart of one of the world’s most exciting cities.
The FMC Brand is conceived as a coherence platform, communicating with the different target groups, including Local Politicians, International Firms/Institutions, Innovative Entrepreneurs, Talented Students and Experts from China, Asia and beyond. Functional international ‘hub linkages’ were established already early on in the planning phase to position FMC within various global networks of economic and scientific activities and build functional linkages to key local stakeholders. This approach is reflected in an inclusive, yet visionary, urban governance structure taking a leading role in gaining the trust of inward investors and local stakeholders alike.
Covering an area of approximately 546ha, FMC is one of the world’s largest Biomedical Centres. Yet, it is built on its distinct historically grown character and competences setting a new standard as an urbanized innovation environment.
This paper was first published in urbanistica informazioni no 198 (2004) under the title “Why Science & Technology Parks go urban: Towards Embedded Innovation Environments”.
References
Beal, B. D. and Gascon, J. (2001) “Geographic agglomeration, knowledge spillovers, and competitive evolution”, INSEAD Working Papers, 2001/26/SM
Duguid, P and Seely Brown, J (2000) “The Mysteries of the Region“, published in “The Silicon Valley Edge: A Habitat for Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, eds., William F. Millar, Chong-Moon Lee, Marguerite Gong Hancock, and Henry S. Rowen. Stanford University Press, 2000: 16–39.
Graham, S and Marvin, S (2003) ‘Splintering Urbanism’, Chapter: The city as socio technical process, Routledge
Sassen, S. Cities in a World Economy. Second ed. Boston: Pine Forge Press, 2000.
Sassen, Saskia, ed. Global Networks, Linked Cities. New York & London: Routledge, 2002.
Scott, Allen J., ed. Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
M. Castells (2000) “The Rise of the Network Society”, Second Edition, Chapter 6 ‘The Space of Flows’, Blackwell Publishers
