Source: The Brock News
At first glance, large regions like York, Peel and the City of Toronto may appear to be where Ontario’s innovation powerhouses are located.
But it’s the province’s mid-sized regions that are the “frontlines” of technological and socio-economic change, says Professor of Political Science Charles Conteh.
“You have shifts in technology; you have shifts in global markets. I want to tell the story of how regions are navigating the currents of change.”
Conteh explores how Hamilton, London, Niagara, Greater Sudbury and Windsor-Essex are reinventing themselves by leveraging their resources, talent and competitive advantages in his new book, Mediating Innovation Policy Delivery: The Regional Innovation Centres of Ontario.
Driving innovation in these regions are what Conteh calls “intermediary institutions.”
Through formal and informal networks, these institutions support the sharing of knowledge, exchange of ideas and coordination of activities among the public, private and non-profit sectors.
Intermediary institutions also play a role in the work of Ontario’s Regional Innovation Centres (RICs), he says, which help entrepreneurs and innovators develop and market their goods and services.
In particular, Conteh examines the strengths and challenges experienced by Innovate Niagara and four other RICs in mid-sized regions.
According to Conteh, collaboration between key local stakeholders makes it possible for Innovate Niagara to provide a variety of entrepreneurship and innovation supports, such as its business advice and mentorship program and market intelligence services.
These stakeholders include organizations such as Niagara Economic Development, municipal economic development offices, the Niagara Industrial Association, the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce, KPMG, Meridian, Brock University, Niagara College, the City of St. Catharines, Niagara Regional Broadband Network, Advanced Office Solutions and Business Link.
Conteh says partnerships and support have made real differences in Niagara and the other regions he studied.
“For instance, one of the proxy measures of a region’s global competitiveness as an innovative and knowledge-driven economy is the state of its information communication technology (ICT) sector,” he says. “Over the past decade, Niagara’s ICT sector job growth rate increased by 83 per cent, leading Ontario and Canada’s rates of 59 per cent.”
Conteh adds that that Hamilton’s ICT sector job growth rate increased 94 per cent, Windsor’s 78 per cent and London’s 82 per cent.
“These robust growth trends in midsized regions reflect the fact that they have been catching up to larger urban centres, where the digital revolution was concentrated as the sector consolidated,” he says.
Overall, Conteh says three features have made the mid-sized regions he studied effective leaders in technological, economic and social change:
- They identified and focused on a set of composite industries that form their most vital economic clusters and competitive advantages.
- They built robust platforms that bring together public, private and non-profit actors, including local post-secondary institutions, to create industry-led regional innovation systems.
- They are strategic about tapping into federal and provincial government programs and resources for industry-specific investments aligned with their regional economic priorities.
“Innovation stakeholders in mid-sized regions can respond and adapt very quickly to new opportunities,” says Conteh. “That makes them more nimble, more flexible than larger places like Toronto.”