The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently held a brainstorming workhop on how innovation conceptually could be measured in education.  From the presentations shown online, I can't tell if there were major conclusions reached, but I found one document interesting for summing up particular possible directions.  I would be very hesitant to implement a Community Innovation Survey-like direction for education because I just have a hard time conceptualizing the theoretical model and questions from that line of work in the education environment.  Education and public services more generally are very different concepts for measuring innovation.  It is good to see the conversation but I have trouble seeing much progress made here unless there is an institutional player driving this conversation which I am not aware of. 

The Alliance for Science & Technology Research in America (ASTRA) has released a new tool aimed at allowing regions in the United States to compare innovation locally to other regions.  After some initial concern, I have corresponded about the tool with ASTRA's Vice President for Research, Robin Gaster.  Robin explained, and should be updating the website, that this was a demonstration project and data hasn't been updated in two years.  With that, on the positive, the interface is flexible at letting you create custom reports comparing different regions.  On the negative, I have had some difficulty in navigating their interface, particularly in finding details such as what the source data is for a particular variable.  As such, I am going to comment on one component of their index, firms and establishments, which are listed as outputs of the innovation process.

For the firms and establishments component, ASTRA appears to use the following data (although I can't find series names, in most cases the actual series are obvious because of limited data availability on the topics):

• Nonemployer firms - number, Published: 2005      
• Nonemployer firms - receipts, Published: 2005    
• Business closings (% of all firms), Published: 2005    
• New companies per 1000 workers, Published: 2005    
• Firms by state - 0 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 0000 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake)  
• Firms by state - all firms - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002)     
• Firms by state - 100-499 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002) 
• Firms by state - 10-19 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002)  
• Firms by state - 1-4 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002)  
• Firms by state - 20-99 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002) 
• Firms by state - 5-9 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002) 
• Business bankruptcies by state Department of Justice, Published: 2006    

I am troubled that regions will not heed Robin's warning and take this data as demonstrating what they can pull because in most cases the data presented are several years out of date.  On all the state level firm size data, much better information is available from the Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, in most cases going through 2006.  Nonemployer statistics should be available through 2006 or 2007.  And relatively recent data available at the state level which should allow for tracking of business dynamics patterns from Census or the Bureau of Labor Statistics don't seem to be considered. 

Thus I see this Regional Innovation Index tool as a good exploratory tool on the types of data one might consider in evaluation innovation at the regional level but users should realize that new data developments are not included here.  . 

Stanford has issued a call for papers on an important issue - privacy - which is intriguing in that it mirrors many of the concepts which the Obama administration raised in their recent innovation white paper released this week about balancing data privacy concerns and openness as a means of encouraging new business activity.  Read the full call. 

The third international FINPIN conference has issued a call for papers. April 25-27, 2010, in Joensuu, Finland, this meeting and discussion forum for practicioners and researchers who want to exchange their know-how and best practices. Explore "Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Universities."  Deadline: September 30, 2009

The International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship has a new call out on "Challenges of Triple Helix Nexus in Managing Science Parks and Innovation Centers to Foster High-Tech Start-Ups."  Deadline August 15, 2010.  Read more.

This morning I read a new report called "The grey economy: How third age entrepreneurs are contributing to growth" by Ron Botham and Andrew Graves.  This project was funded by National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) in the U.K.  This report is particularly interesting in that it summarizes a survey which was undertaken in the U.K. specifically to look at firms started by older entrepreneurs, as well as topics like innovative activities.  While their survey response rates were not particularly good, other aspects of the design seemed pretty robust on my first reading of their protocol.  I know there is a great deal of interest in the older entrepreneur population, as highlighted by some recent reports by Kauffman and others, and would point interested parties to this report (and the accompanying literature review).  Although this is the first survey which I can remember which stratifies to get an oversample of older entrepreneurs, I doubt it will be the last. 

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is hosting a one-day workshop in Washington, DC on "Accelerating Energy Innovation: Lessons from Multiple Sectors".  The presentations will be held on October 23, 2009 the National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC.

The program can be found at http://www.nber.org/~confer/2009/EIf09/program.html.  If you would like to attend, please email Rob Shannon by October 9, 2009.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Technology Innovation Program (TIP) has posted a call for papers to inform future programs.  The Advanced Technology Program of NIST was featured in our 2007 Kauffman Data Symposium for some of the data it had available to researchers.  While this current call is pretty high-level, I wanted to highlight that NIST has a history of being open to collecting high-quality research data which also can be informative to their programs. 

The call highlights the following areas of particular interest to TIP:

• An area of critical national need means an area that justifies government attention because the magnitude of the problem is large and the associated societal challenges that need to be overcome are not being addressed, but could be addressed through high-risk, high-reward research.
• A societal challenge is a problem or issue confronted by society that when not addressed could negatively affect the overall function and quality of life of the Nation, and as such, justifies government action. A societal challenge is associated with barriers preventing the successful development of solutions to the area of critical national need. TIP’s mission is to tackle the technical issues that can be addressed through high-risk, high-reward research. The results of the high-risk, high-reward research should have the potential for transformational results.
• A transformational result is a potential project outcome that enables disruptive changes over and above current methods and strategies. Transformational results have the potential to radically improve our understanding of systems and technologies, challenging the status quo of research approaches and applications.

Papers are being accepted from November 9, 2009 through September 30, 2010.

New Economics Papers (NEP) has added a new distribution service for new papers in small business management.  NEP is a free service of RePEc, a larger effort to disseminate research in economics, This is a nice complement to its existing notification services on entrepreneurship and innovation.  We sponsor a broader dissemination tool with Social Science Research Network (SSRN).  I subscribe to both services and have found that SSRN has better coverage of U.S. research and is inclusive of non-economics disciplines, while NEP has better coverage of Europe economics institutions.  Unfortunately, neither provider has data-specific notifications.

The 2nd European Conference on Intellectual Capital has posted a call for papers for several mini tracks, including one on entrepreneurial performance.  The abstract submission deadline is September 22, 2009.