Selecting Europe's Innovation Capital: A Good idea?

The European Commission is offering a €500,000 (US$655,700) prize to accompany designation of an "iCapital" — the single city in the Union, which is building the best "innovation ecosystem", connecting citizens, public organizations, academia, and business. Should the U.S. federal government follow suit? Probably not without modifications.

Inherent in the competition's design is the belief that all successful geographically based innovation systems have an array of local, publicly backed initiatives and programs that support the creation of an environment allowing others to innovate and public-private interconnections. Whether accurate or not, there is considerable disagreement in the United States as to how active a role the public sector should play in supporting innovation, commercialization and technology-based entrepreneurship. Congressional appropriations for regional innovation initiatives are insignificant when compared to the federal investments made in other forms of development. States and municipalities, however, have led the creation and support of technology-based economic development in America.

Over the past few decades, Europe has produced some of the strongest academic studies of regional innovation systems. European academics, in fact, originated the concept and introduced terms such as "city-regions," reflecting the idea that  economies and agglomerations pay little attention to historic municipal jurisdictions. In the case of the iCapital competition, however, eligibility has been limited to city jurisdictions with over 100,000 residents; not larger metropolitan areas or regions.  This seems counter-productive. For example, would pitting all of the cities within Silicon Valley against each other for an American iCapital designation be beneficial to the collaborative nature of the region's innovation system? 

Finally, the winner will have to demonstrate "they are following a comprehensive strategy" that was entirely implemented after January 1, 2010, and that it excels in four categories: innovation, inspiration, integration and interaction. Applicants will be judged on their initiatives, achievements and future plans as well as how well it complements the commission's Europe 2020 strategy.

More information is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/index_en.cfm?section=icapital.