Academic literature on the topic 'Evolutionary innovation'

AbstractBehavioral innovations induced by the social or physical environment are likely to be of great functional and evolutionary importance, and thus warrant serious attention. Innovation provides a process by which animals can adjust to changed environments. Despite this apparent adaptive advantage, it is not known whether innovative propensities are adaptive specializations. Furthermore, the varied psychological processes underlying innovation remain poorly understood.

In this paper author has explored the relationship between technology and organization from the perspective of evolutionary economy. The technology is seen as the key source of dynamism in economic development. This have involved a discussion of the factors shaping long term trends in technological development, the relationship of innovation to economic progress and the role of organizations as sources of innovation activity. The technological innovations arc viewed as mutations which if successful result in variations in the economic environment. Success is in part a function of environmental selection by consumers and users. In order to survive, organizations must adopt to radically new and emergent technological and market conditions ('techno-economic paradigms'). To do this they must learn how to assimilate and apply the new knowledge required to bring about and sustain innovation. Organizations move from current pathways of technological development onto the completely new trajectory offered by new technology. They must play an active role in developing strategies that strengthen their innovative capacity. These processes determinate new organizational form innovative organization.

Human language emerged abruptly. Diverse body forms evolved suddenly. Seed-bearing plants spread rapidly. How do complex evolutionary innovations arise so quickly? Resolving alternative claims remains difficult. The great events of the past happened a long time ago. Cancer provides a model to study evolutionary innovation. A tumor must evolve many novel traits to become an aggressive cancer. I use what we know or could study about cancer to describe the key processes of innovation. In general, evolutionary systems form a hierarchy of recursive processes. Those recursive processes determine the rates at which innovations are generated, spread and transmitted. I relate the recursive processes to abrupt evolutionary innovation.

Animal innovations range from the discovery of novel food types to the invention of completely novel behaviours. Innovations can give access to new opportunities, and thus enable innovating agents to invade and create novel niches. This in turn can pave the way for morphological adaptation and adaptive radiation. The mechanisms that make innovations possible are probably as diverse as the innovations themselves. So too are their evolutionary consequences. Perhaps because of this diversity, we lack a unifying framework that links mechanism to function. We propose a framework for animal innovation that describes the interactions between mechanism, fitness benefit and evolutionary significance, and which suggests an expanded range of experimental approaches. In doing so, we split innovation into factors (components and phases) that can be manipulated systematically, and which can be investigated both experimentally and with correlational studies. We apply this framework to a selection of cases, showing how it helps us ask more precise questions and design more revealing experiments.

Innovative activities have dual impacts – known as the ‘process of creative destruction’. Innovations ‘destroy’ traditional production opportunities, but ‘create’ new ones. To organize innovation activities into an evolutionary process, it is necessary to investigate how to coordinate them. This includes analysis of the synergistic effects of different technological activities in specific areas or institutions. In this paper, starting from the concept of economic growth poles, the general economic arguments for innovation poles as a means of using synergy and coordinating innovation activities are outlined. The opportunities and problems in applying the concept of innovation poles in practical economic policy are then demonstrated, with empirical data from Japan and Germany. The research on which this paper is based was carried out in light of the promising experiences of R&D and technology transfer in Japan and the need for innovation and risk capital investment in Germany, especially in East Germany.

Innovative behaviour in animals, ranging from invertebrates to humans, is increasingly recognized as an important topic for investigation by behavioural researchers. However, what constitutes an innovation remains controversial, and difficult to quantify. Drawing on a broad definition whereby any behaviour with a new component to it is an innovation, we propose a quantitative measure, which we call the magnitude of innovation , to describe the extent to which an innovative behaviour is novel. This allows us to distinguish between innovations that are a slight change to existing behaviours (low magnitude), and innovations that are substantially different (high magnitude). Using mathematical modelling and evolutionary computer simulations, we explored how aspects of social interaction, cognition and natural selection affect the frequency and magnitude of innovation. We show that high-magnitude innovations are likely to arise regularly even if the frequency of innovation is low, as long as this frequency is relatively constant, and that the selectivity of social learning and the existence of social rewards, such as prestige and royalties, are crucial for innovative behaviour to evolve. We suggest that consideration of the magnitude of innovation may prove a useful tool in the study of the evolution of cognition and of culture.

Actualment, degut a la disponibilitat d’un gran nombre de genomes seqüenciats, el camp de la genòmica comparativa està experimentant grans avenços. Ara són possibles una àmplia gama d’estudis que fins fa poc eren inimaginables. En aquesta tesi hem volgut estudiar les innovacions evolutives en els genomes de mamífers. Hem escollit centrar l’estudi en mamífers degut a que els seus genomes tenen bona qualitat i hi ha més informació disponible, a més el fet d’incloure l’espècie humana afegeix interès. Ens hem centrat en tres qüestions interessants en el camp de l’evolució. Primer hem volgut determinar quina és la fracció de gens ortòlegs de mamífers que presenten desviacions específiques de llinatge en les tasses evolutives. Hem obtingut que al voltant del 25% dels gens tenen evidencies d’haver estat sotmesos a acceleracions i deceleracions específiques de branca. Hem trobat que sorprenentment, els gens accelerats normalment no solapen amb els gens amb evidencia de selecció positiva, demostrant que els tests emprats per detectar selecció positiva són massa conservadors. En segon lloc, hem aprofundit en quins són els determinants de l’evolució proteica, centrant-nos en l’edat d’origen i en les característiques estructurals. Per estudiar-ho hem utilitzat tant dominis com estructures proteiques i principalment hem trobat que l’edat d’origen és un dels determinants més importants. Finalment, hem investigat les característiques i els mecanismes d’origen d’un grup de gens molt joves: els gens específics de primats. Hem trobat que els gens específics de primats evolucionen ràpid, són curts i específics de teixit. Pel que fa al seu mecanisme d’origen, al voltant d’un 53% dels gens presenten evidencies d’haver-se originat a través de l’exaptació de transposons, 24% a partir de duplicacions parcials o totals i sorprenentment, 5.5% de novo a partir de regions no codificants de mamífers.
With the availability of a high number of sequenced genomes the comparative genomics field has experienced a great advance. A wide range of studies that some years ago were unconceivable are now possible. In this thesis we aimed to study evolutionary innovations in mammalian genomes. We chose to centre our studies in mammalian species because at that moment were the genomes with higher quality and also more additional information was available for them, and of course, the inclusion of human species added a point of interest. We wished to give insights into three exciting questions in the field of evolution. First we wanted to assess which is the fraction of mammalian orthologous genes that present lineage-specific deviations in the rate of evolution. We obtained that around 25% of the genes had evidence of accelerations and decelerations specific of a branch and, surprisingly, accelerated cases did not usually overlap with cases of genes experiencing positive selection, showing that tests to detect positive selection are excessively conservative. Secondly, we wanted to deepen into the determinants driving protein evolution, centering on age of origin and structural characteristics. We used protein domains and structures to study them and we mainly found that age of origin seems to be one of the most important determinants. And finally, we investigated the characteristics and mechanisms of origin of a group of very young genes: primate-specific genes. We report that primate-specific genes evolve fast, are short and highly tissue specific. Regarding their mechanism of origin, about 53% of them showed evidence of transposable elements exaptation, 24% of partial or total duplication and surprisingly 5.5% of de novo origination from mammalian noncoding regions.

La innovació, que ha estat durant molt de temps el resultat, a vegades heroic, de la tasca d'un emprenedor solitari, està esdevenint progressivament una tasca col·lectiva que troba una descripció més acurada quan es presenta com el resultat d'un procés complex amb múltiples actors.
Aquesta tesi vol explorar aquest aspecte col·lectiu de la innovació, tot aprofundint en dues línies de recerca. Una, que utilitza el modelatge basat en agents per a la creació de model teòrics. L'altre, que es basa en l'ús de l'anàlisi qualitatiu per a esbrinar algunes de les claus d'unes organitzacions ‐els Living Labs ‐ que cerquen involucrar els usuaris en el procés d'innovació.
Ara bé, malgrat presentem la innovació com un procés obert, aquesta entesa com un procés tancat sembla també tenir èxit. De fet, tant els telèfons mòbils molt simples o molt complexos, semblen seguir aquest enfocament. En quines condicions el procés d'innovació es beneficia de ser un procés obert i quan és possible obtenir millors resultats retenint el control de la totalitat del procés, és la nostra primera pregunta de recerca.
D'altra banda, aquest procés de col·laboració, característic d'un enfocament obert, és considerat normalment a un nivell micro com el resultat de la interacció diàdica entre agents. Existeix però, un altre nivell, un nivell macro que ve caracteritzat per la funció d'institucions com les Escoles de Negocis, que juguen un paper important en destil·lar les millors pràctiques i crear hipòtesis a partir d'elles que si es revelen exitoses seran adoptades per la totalitat dels agents.
La comprensió del funcionament d'aquest procés, del nombre de casos que cal considerar i de quan extensius han de ser, entendre fins a quin punt les empreses poden confiar en l'assessorament de les Escoles de Negoci i quan es necessari aventurar‐se en l'exploració de noves possibilitats, és també quelcom necessari per a caracteritzar la innovació com un procés col·lectiu.
Malauradament, la nostra comprensió dels mecanismes col·laboratius és encara escassa. Sabem però, que la innovació ja no és quelcom exclusiu dels laboratoris d'I+D o d'organitzacions capdavanteres, sinó que els usuaris juguen no solament un paper rellevant sinó que són percebuts com a actors amb un gran potencial. Els Living Labs és una de les tentatives per proporcionar estructura i governança a la involucració dels usuaris en el procés d'innovació. En aquest aspecte, examinarem quina és la contribució d'aquests usuaris i com els Living Labs busquen capturar‐ne el seu coneixement i aplicar‐lo i quant tenen èxit en aquest procés.
La innovación, que se ha presentado muchas veces como el resultado de un proceso, muchas veces heroico, de emprendedores excepcionales, se está convirtiendo de una forma progresiva en un proceso colectivo que se describe con más acierto cuando se presenta como el resultado de un proceso complejo con multitud de actores.
Esta tesis, pretende explorar este aspecto colectivo del proceso de innovación, profundizando en dos líneas de investigación. Una que utiliza el modelado basado en agentes para la construcción de modelos teóricos. Otra que se basa en el análisis cualitativo para profundizar en las claves de unas organizaciones ¬los Living Labs ‐ que buscan involucrar a los usuarios en los procesos de innovación.
Ahora bien, a pesar de que la innovación se presente como un proceso abierto, ésta entendida como un proceso cerrado, parece también tener éxito. De hecho, los teléfonos móviles muy simples o muy complejos, parecen seguir este enfoque. En qué condiciones el proceso de innovación se beneficia de ser un proceso abierto y cuando es posible obtener mejores resultados reteniendo el control de la totalidad del proceso, es nuestra primera pregunta de investigación.
Por otro lado, este proceso de colaboración, característico de un enfoque abierto, es considerado normalmente a un nivel micro, como el resultado de la interacción diádica entre agentes. Existe pero, otro nivel, un nivel macro, caracterizado por la función de instituciones como las Escuelas de Negocios, que juegan un papel importante destilando las mejores prácticas y creando hipótesis a partir de ellas que si se revelan exitosas serán masivamente adoptadas.
La comprensión del funcionamiento de este proceso, del número de casos a considerar y de su extensión, comprender hasta qué punto las empresas pueden confiar en el asesoramiento de las Escuelas de Negocios y cuando es necesario aventurarse en un proceso de exploración de nuevas posibilidades, es también algo imprescindible para caracterizar la innovación como un proceso colectivo.
Desgraciadamente nuestra comprensión de los mecanismos colaborativos en la innovación es aún escasa. Sin embargo sabemos que la innovación ya no es algo exclusivo de los laboratorios de I+D o de grandes empresas, los usuarios juegan no sólo un papel relevante sino que son percibidos como actores con un alto potencial. Los Living Labs es una de las tentativas que buscan proporcionar estructura y gobierno a la involucración de los usuarios en el proceso de innovación. En este aspecto, examinaremos cuál es la contribución de los usuarios, cómo los Living Labs buscan capturar su conocimiento y aplicarlo y cuando tienen éxito en su intento.
Innovation, which used to be the result of a single, sometimes heroic, entrepreneur, is progressively turning into a collaborative endeavor, better described as the result of a complex process with multiple actors.
This thesis aims to explore this collaborative aspect of innovation by digging into two strands of research. One uses Agent‐Based Modeling to create theoretical models, where the other one uses qualitative analysis to devise some insights from organizations ‐Living Labs ‐that aim to involve users in innovation.
In addition to understanding innovation as an open process, a closed one seems sometimes to be equally successful. In fact, very simple and very complex mobile phones seem to follow this later approach. Under what conditions innovation benefits from being open and when better results can be obtained from retaining control of the whole process is our first research question.
This process of collaboration, characteristic of the open approach, is normally considered at a micro level, as a result of a dyadic interaction between agents. Nevertheless, there is a macro level characterized by institutions, such as Business Schools, that play an important role in uncovering Best Practices and building hypothesis that, if successful, will be adopted by the agents.
Understanding how this process works; how many cases should be collected and how comprehensive they should be; how much companies can rely on the insights of Business Schools; and when it is necessary to engage in exploration, is also necessary when characterizing innovation as a collective process.
The mechanisms of collaboration are, however, not all well‐understood. Innovation is no longer in the solely hands of R&D laboratories or even organizations, users play an increasingly significant role and are being perceived as holding vast potential. Living Labs is one attempt to provide structure and governance to user involvement in innovation. Here, we will examine what is the contribution of users, how Living Labs aim to capture relevant knowledge and apply it, and when and how this proves successful.

This thesis explores the unintended consequences of sectoral regulation for the innovation process by combining insights from innovation studies, economics and political science. Regulation is viewed as an enabling institution with a momentum of its own that evolves in accordance to other socially embedded processes among which we focus on innovation. The relationship between the two processes is not considered as unidirectional; rather, we view regulation and innovation as two processes that co-evolve.

The Heat Shock Protein 90 (Hsp90) is an essential and highly conserved chaperone that facilitates the maturation of a wide array of client proteins, including many kinases. These clients in turn regulate a wide array of cellular processes, such as signal transduction, and transcriptional reprogramming. As a result, the activity of Hsp90 has the potential to influence physiology, which in turn may influence the ability to adapt to new environments. Previous studies using a deep mutational scanning approach, (EMPIRIC) identified multiple substitutions within a 9 amino acid substrate-binding loop of yeast Hsp90 that provides a growth advantage for yeast under elevated salinity conditions and costs of adaptation under alternate environments. These results demonstrate that genetic alterations to a small region of Hsp90 can contribute to evolutionary change and promote adaptation to specific environments. However, because Hsp90 is a large, highly dynamic and multi-functional protein the adaptive potential and evolutionary constraints of Hsp90 across diverse environments requires further investigation. In this dissertation I used a modified version of EMPIRIC to examine the impact of environmental stress on the adaptive potential, costs and evolutionary constraints for a 118 amino acid functional region of the middle domain of yeast Hsp90 under endogenous expression levels and the entire Hsp90 protein sequence under low expression levels. Endogenous Hsp90 expression levels were used to observe how environment may affect Hsp90 mutant fitness effects in nature, while low expression levels were used as a sensitive readout of Hsp90 function and fitness. In general, I found that mutations within the middle domain of Hsp90 have similar fitness effects across many environments, whereas, under low Hsp90 expression I found that the fitness effects of Hsp90 mutants differed between environments. Under individual conditions multiple variants provided a growth advantage, however these variants exhibited growth defects in other environments, indicating costs of adaptation. When comparing experimental results to 261 extant eukaryotic sequences I find that natural variants of Hsp90 support growth in all environments. I identified protein regions that are enriched in beneficial, deleterious and costly mutations that coincides with residues involved in co-chaperone-client-binding interactions, stabilization of Hsp90 client-binding interfaces, stabilization of Hsp90 interdomains and ATPase chaperone activity. In summary, this thesis uncovers the adaptive potential, costs of adaptation and evolutionary constraints of Hsp90 mutations across several environments. These results complement and extend known structural and functional information, highlighting potential adaptive mechanisms. Furthermore, this work elucidates the impact environment can have on shaping Hsp90 evolution and suggests that fluctuating environments may have played a role in the long-term evolution of Hsp90.

The concept of National Innovation Systems (NIS) has been widely adopted in developing countries, particularly in Latin American countries, for the last two decades. The concept is used mainly as an ex-ante framework to organize and increase the dynamics of those institutions linked to science, technology and innovation, for catching-up processes of development. In the particular case of Bolivia, and after several decades of social and economic crisis, the promise of a national innovation system reconciles a framework for collaboration between the university, the government and the socio-productive sectors. Dynamics of collaboration generated within NIS can be a useful tool for the pursuit of inclusive development ambitions.   This thesis is focused on inclusive innovation processes and the generation of co-evolutionary processes between university, government and socio-productive sectors. This is the result of 8 years of participatory action research influenced by Mode 2 knowledge-production and Technoscientific approaches.   The study explores the policy paths the Bolivian government has followed in the last three decades in order to organize science, technology and innovation. It reveals that Bolivia has an emerging national innovation system, where its demand-pulled innovation model presents an inclusive approach. Innovation policy efforts in Bolivia are led by the Vice-Ministry of Science and Technology (VCyT). Moreover, NIS involves relational and collaborative approaches between institutions, which imply structural and organizational challenges, particularly for public universities, as they concentrate most of the research capabilities in the country. These universities are challenged to participate in NIS within contexts of weak demanding sectors.    This research focuses on the early empirical approaches and transformations at Universidad Mayor de San Simón (UMSS) in Cochabamba. The aim to strengthen internal innovation capabilities of the university and enhance the relevance of research activities in society by supporting socio-economic development in the framework of innovation systems is led by the Technology Transfer Unit (UTT) at UMSS. UTT has become a recognized innovation facilitator unit, inside and outside the university, by proposing pro-active initiatives to support emerging innovation systems. Because of its complexity, the study focuses particularly on cluster development promoted by UTT. Open clusters are based on linking mechanisms between the university research capabilities, the socio-productive actors and government. Cluster development has shown to be a practical mechanism for the university to meet the demanding sector (government and socio-productive actors) and to develop trust-based inclusive innovation processes. The experiences from cluster activities have inspired the development of new research policies at UMSS, with a strong orientation to foster research activities towards an increased focus on socio-economic development. The experiences gained at UMSS are discussed and presented as a “developmental university” approach.   Inclusive innovation processes with co-evolutionary approaches seem to constitute an alternative path supporting achievement of inclusive development ambitions in Bolivia.

This thesis investigates the evolutionary foundation of the Innovation System concept and the quantitative techniques that could be used for a systemic evaluation of innovation policies. This topic has been covered through 6 chapters:
Chapter I: The innovation system concept, which is the central concept of this thesis, finds its foundations in the evolutionary theory of economics and the Schumpeterian point of view on the co-evolution of innovation, organizations and institutions. Developed by Nelson and Winter in 1982, this theory is based on the idea that the surviving firms on the markets are not necessarily the ones that maximize their profits. Indeed, their ability to survive is reinforced by the development of internal organizational routines allowing for a fast adaptation to their changing environment. Thus, when assessing performances in terms of innovation in general, the single firm should not by the only centre of attention anymore. The entire environment surrounding its innovation activities should by analysed to understand the conditions underlying its failure or success. The definition of the innovation system (IS) concept finds its roots in this theory: the environment in which innovation activities take place is as important as the decision of the single innovation actor. Defined as all the institutions and organizations involved in the creation and diffusion of new knowledge and technology, the IS includes not only stakeholders of the innovation process, but also all the transversal sectors affecting innovation near or far: labour market, finance, and education… In such a context, the main justification for public intervention shifted from the market failures described by the neo-classical theory, to systemic failures, i.e. the dysfunctions of the IS, on which governments may take actions. And this shift in the policy rationale also leads to specific evaluation techniques of public initiatives.
Chapter II: The IS concept is defined as all the institutions and organizations involved in the creation, diffusion and absorption of new knowledge and technology. An important question is raised by such a point of view: what is a system? What are its components? How does it foster innovation? This theoretical step is necessary to understand all the aspect of the innovation environment that are concerned by innovation policy design. How could a policy-maker integrate the systemic framework of the IS when initiating public action with the aim to improve performances in terms of science, technology and innovation? A large part of the economic literature is dedicated to the description of innovation systems. So the aim of this chapter consists of synthetizing the aspects referenced in the economic theory as the components of the IS in a normative exercise. First, the term “system” involves the articulation of several components and the relationships existing between them. Departing from this definition, three broad aspect of the IS are considered: the actors of the innovation process, the functions of the system and the resulting objectives that should be pursued by the stakeholders, and the instruments used by public authorities to intervene in such a systemic context. The actors involved in the innovation process are not only the recipient of a public policy, they are also policy makers, implementation agents and targets of the policy measures. The functions of the IS mainly concerns the creation, diffusion and absorption of new knowledge and technology. As the role of the State is to improve the performances of such a system, those functions should be considered as the objectives of public action. Finally, the instruments used by the State to reach these goals can also be detailed: innovation policies can be implemented through direct support measures (financial or fiscal tools), the improvement of the infrastructure allowing for the diffusion of innovation, or the general framework conditions affecting performances. The normative exercise ended up with an exhaustive taxonomy that may be used for further analysis
Chapter III: As the aim of this thesis is to develop analytical tools to integrate the IS point of view in public policy evaluation, the most important aspect of the work consisted in building an exhaustive database on innovation policies implemented in the EU28 Member States and its main non-EU competitors (Australia, China, Japan, the US, India, the Russian Federation, Brazil, South Korea and Canada). This database was constructed in the context of the ENIRI study conducted by the European Commission, between 2013 and 2015. This long-lasting work involved the collection of information concerning the innovation policy measures implemented in all the considered countries, both at the national and regional levels. This information was related to the IS dimensions highlighted in previous chapter. The main sources for data collection were the RIO (former Erawatch) and OECD STIP databases, the RIM Plus Monitor and national sources (Ministry websites), as well as national experts. The budgets was also included or estimated for the 2007-2013 period. Once the data were collected, the policy measures were classified according to the theoretical canvas developed through the taxonomy of chapter II. Functional matrices combining different aspects of the IS allowed for detailed information on the distribution of policy measures among the different dimensions of the system. For example, it is possible to estimate the percentage of policy measures implemented in one country that are dedicated to the fundamental research activities in SMEs. This distribution has been computed both in absolute and budget terms. This difference provided information on the contrast existing between governmental claims and intentions in terms of innovation policies and the effective use of money dedicated to the announced target. Indeed, it is not because a substantial number of policies are dedicated to a specific sector of beneficiary that the allocated budget will be more important. Thus, this policy database should shed a light on the way innovation policies are articulated at a national level, and how they are effectively implemented through their budgets
Chapter IV: The evolutionary foundations of the IS concept imply that there is no general equilibrium describing an ideal situation to which a specific case can be compared. In other words, there is no optimal innovation system, and no ideal configuration that should be imitated by the others. This absence of equilibrium and the systemic point of view adopted in this context lead to the use of alternative techniques to evaluate performances and policies. As suggested by Edquist (2006), this has to be done through a diagnosis of the IS, consisting in the identification of the systemic failures, and the elaboration of strategy to fix the problem. This demarche will be investigated in this chapter of the thesis and the following. In this section, a diagnosis of the IS of 37 countries (28 EU and their 9 non-EU competitors) will be realized through a typology based on innovation performances indicators. The aim of such an analysis is to see whether the different IS can be gathered in groups sharing the same characteristics, relative strengths and weaknesses. The expected results should reveal groups of countries sharing the same configurations in terms of innovation process, and facing the same type of weaknesses, dysfunctions or systemic failures. By doing so, one should be able to identify the needs of each IS, i.e. the components that may need improvement and eventually public intervention. To do so, a principal component analysis and a hierarchical ascendant clustering technique have been implemented on the 37 IS, revealing 4 clusters of countries, depending on their NIS characteristics and advancement: 1) The Asian economies, 2) The lagging-behind and catching-up NIS, 3) The small opened systems, 4) The technological leaders. This analysis has been realized for the 2003-2005 and 2013-2015 periods, revealing that, if the general features of the clusters do not tend to change over time, some countries faced a change a modification of their status: Korea left the Asian group to join the leaders, Cyprus and Ireland opened their boarders to a larger extent in a decade.
Chapter V: Innovation policy typologyThis chapter is focused on the construction of an innovation policy typology based on the distributions of policies obtained in the database presented in chapter III. The results of this typology will be compared with the diagnosis realized in previous section to see if the weaknesses and needs of the NIS are effectively targeted by public action in innovation. Also, the aspects that could enhance or weaken such action, and their combination with other component of the NIS could be better understood. To this purpose, a multiple factor analysis has been implemented on the distributions of policy measures in terms of NIS components, followed by a hierarchical ascendant clustering, revealing groups of countries sharing the same characteristics in terms of policy design and implementation. 34 NIS have been examined (India, Brazil and Russia have been removed from the sample due to the bad quality of the information), using both the budget-weighted and non-budget-weighted distributions of measures on the 2007-2013 period. However, the results of this typology cannot be interpreted separately from the general innovation framework in which the public action is implemented. Indeed, countries having the same features in terms of beneficiaries and/or objectives in terms of policy do not necessarily share the same kind of IS. These implementation characteristics should rather be interpreted in light of the results obtained in the NIS diagnosis typology, in order to examiner if the public money effectively go where it is needed. In general, the different examined countries seem to effectively tackle their weaknesses, but countries facing the same types of problems do not implement the same type of policy mix, reinforcing the hypothesis that the innovation process is embedded in a large institutional framework that my orient public action in a direction rather than another. Two specific cases hold the attention in those results: South Korea, whose leader status came along with an improvement of the in force regulatory framework and a focus on private research, and Japan, dealing with research in the pharmaceutical research and ageing-population issues.
Chapter VI: The impact of macroeconomic and IS factors on the efficiency of public R&DAnother point of view can be adopted in an attempt to integrate the IS representations in policy evaluation techniques: the analysis of their impact on the efficiency of public R&D in leveraging private investments. In this chapter, a combination of two types of analysis is used to examine the problematic: the study of the efficiency of public R&D expenditure and its determinants on one hand, and the investigation of a possible crowding out effect of public R&D on the private one on another hand. The crowding out effect is translated into efficiency analysis, considering the BERD funded by government as an input, and the BERD funded by business as an output. And if an increase in the output leads to a decrease in the output, public intervention is considered to crowd out private initiative, as the firm may decide to replace its own investment with public money, instead of using it as an extra resource to increase its R&D activities. In this context, the IS as environment of R&D activities can be seen as a determinant of this efficiency, as it can strengthen or weaken this crowding out effect. The question asked in this section is the following: how to quantify and model the interdependencies existing between the different components of a NIS in order to integrate them in a quantitative analysis. This has been done in this study by implementing factorial analysis (Buesa, 2010) on a set of indicators collected in the Global Competitiveness Index database, and considered as descriptors of the different aspects of the innovation system. Those IS factors are: 1) the general STI environment, 2) the accessibility of the financial markets, 3) the internationalization of the system, 4) barriers to entrepreneurship and 5) the flexibility of labour regulation. Afterwards, these variables have been added as efficiency determinants in a stochastic frontier model assessing a possible crowding out effect between public and private initiatives. The main results showed that there is an additional effect of public R&d expenditure on private R&D investments (no crowding out). Moreover, the general STI environment and accessibility of financial markets have a positive impact on this efficiency, contrary to the presence of foreign stakeholders in the system. The two last factors remain insignificant. Those results suggest that, if public intervention should have an effect on the performances of the NIS, this relationship is also reciprocal: a well-functioning NIS may have a positive effect on the results of a policy measure.
Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In this thesis we aimed to study evolutionary implications of low-complexity regions, protein sequences of very simple amino acid composition. Its uncontrolled expansion causes several human diseases, including Huntington’s disease and other neurodegenerative and developmental diseases. However, they are surprisingly abundant in proteins, which seem paradoxical given their high pathogenic potential. Moreover, experimental data has shown that the formation of novel LCRs, or the modification of existing ones, can have functional consequences. First we wanted to perform a descriptive analysis of low-complexity regions in chordates focusing on lineage and age related features of LCR evolution. Second, we want to assess why low-complexity regions are so common in eukaryotic proteins. Two hypotheses have been proposed: on one hand, they may be an important source of genetic variability and might be involved in adaptive processes. To investigate whether LCRs are important players in the acquisition of novel functions, we examined transcription factor gene duplicates. On the other hand, low-complexity regions may also contribute to the formation of novel coding sequences, facilitating the generation of novel protein functions. We have tested this hypothesis by examining the content of low-complexity sequences in proteins of different age. Both analysis let us to conclude that low-complexity regions may be involved in protein diversification, either providing new functional sequences that will modify existing proteins or being involved in the formation of novel protein coding sequences.
L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és estudiar les implicacions evolutives de les regions de baixa complexitat (LCRs, en anglès), seqüències de proteïnes amb una composició d'aminoàcids molt simple. La seva expansió incontrolada causa diverses malalties humanes, incloent la malaltia de Huntington i altres malalties neurodegeneratives i del desenvolupament. No obstant això, són sorprenentment abundants en les proteïnes, cosa que pot semblar paradoxal, donat el seu potencial patogènic. A més, estudis experimentals han demostrat que la formació de noves LCRs, o la modificació de les ja existents, pot tenir conseqüències funcionals. En primer lloc hem volgut fer una anàlisi descriptiva de les regions de baixa complexitat en cordats, incidint en les característiques relacionades amb el llinatge i l'edat de les LCRs des d'un punt de vista evolutiu. En segon lloc, hem volgut avaluar per què les LCRs són tan freqüents en les proteïnes d'eucariotes. S'han proposat dues hipòtesis: d'una banda, poden ser una important font de variabilitat genètica i podrien estar implicades en processos d'adaptació. Per tal d'investigar si les LCRs juguen un paper important en L'adquisició de noves funcions, hem examinat factors de transcripció que han patit una duplicació o. D'altra banda, les regions de baixa complexitat també poden contribuir a la formació de noves seqüències codificants, facilitant la generació de funcions noves de les proteïnes. Per comprovar aquesta hipòtesi, hem examinat el contingut de les seqüències de baixa complexitat en proteïnes d'edats diferents. Les dues anàlisis permeten concloure que les regions de baixa complexitat poden estar involucrades en la diversificació de les proteïnes, ja sigui proporcionant noves seqüències funcionals que modifiquen les proteïnes existents o participant en la formació de noves seqüències codificants de proteïnes.

Long run economic growth potential depends on the increase in the efficiency of resource utilization in the economy through improvements in the underlying technological capabilities. Recent economic growth slow-down, and in particularly the substantial decline in long-run productivity growth rates in the US, raises a question regarding the possible slowdown in the underlying technological growth. I set out to evaluate this question by examining the change in the potential social benefits from technology over the period of 1944-2000 in the US. I use knowledge spillovers generated by cohorts of patented innovations as proxy to the social benefits generated by those cohorts. These can be estimated using the distribution parameters for the number of citations received by patents in a cohort. The data for the work is a newly constructed patent citations database of all US patent data from 1920-2006 with full citations from 1947 on.

The first chapter introduces the new data and provides an in-depth analysis of the time-trend of its various statistical characteristics. The exposed non-stationary distribution parameter for the citation data impedes its use in the time-series analysis for extracting the innovative quality trend. A de-trending treatment to correct for this non-stationary behavior is proposed and applied.

The second chapter pursues the innovative quality analysis over the period. My attempts to use the Jaffe-Trajtenberg model for knowledge spillovers with the expanded data period strained some of the model's underlying assumptions to a breaking point. Instead, I introduce a new model for estimating the intensity of such spillovers (the innovative quality) based on the Log-Normal distribution of patent values as measured from their spillover effects (received citations). I compute the innovative output quality for annual cohorts of patents in narrowly defined technological fields over the period of 1937-1994. The results show a decline in the traditional mechanical and chemical technologies quality starting in the early 1960s. The modern technologies associated with electronics, ICT and medicine flourished until the early to mid 1980s,after which their quality declined as well.

The last chapter examines the evolutionary path of a transformative technology using the ICT over the period of 1944 to 1994. The analysis uses the full citation network for US patents over the period of 1947-2006 and applies network analysis techniques to identify main technological trajectories for the key technological fields comprising the ICT. The pattern of technological inflows and outflows for each cohort on the trajectory provides the evolutionary timeline and technology inter-dependencies. These demonstrate the underlying process of building the essential skills and complementary devices and techniques which took place in the first 25 years of the ICT evolutionary path. The fast pace of that evolutionary path and lack of significant gaps in the time-line suggest that even under optimal conditions of existing market demand for new technologies (e.g. defense and space), it takes a new, transformative technology close to half a century to deliver its productivity gains.