Innovation in Agri-Food Clusters

Innovation has moved through a range of revolutionary epochs, but there is no clear picture of how, or even if, innovation can be managed. This book explores the models, methods and metrics of innovation analysis in the context of a single centre: the Global Oilseeds Complex centred in Saskatoon, Canada. It is a single, coherent volume that outlines the theory and practices related to innovation, offering a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches, backed up with empirical evidence.

- Dr. Phillips is Distinguished Professor in the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan. He earned his MScEcon and Ph.D. at the LSE and practiced for 13 years as a professional economist and advisor in industry and government. At USask he has held the Van Vliet Research Chair, created and held an NSERC-SSHRC Chair in Managing Technological Change, was a founding member and director of the virtual College of Biotechnology and was founding director of the JSGS. He has had appointments at the LSE, the OECD, the EUI, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Western Australia. He was a founding member of the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee and has been on many company boards, including CAPI, Pharmalytics and Ag West Bio Inc. (which operates a biotech venture fund). He has held >15 peer reviewed grants worth >$200 million and is the author/editor of 13 books, >40 journal articles and >50 book chapters, including Innovation in Agri-food Clusters (CABI 2012).

Jeremy Karwandy is an economic development practitioner and policy analyst with Enterprise Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. He earned his MSc through the interdisciplinary graduate program at the University of Saskatchewan by investigating the interface between theories of the firm and theories of economic agglomeration. His current work focuses on advancing policies and programs that enhance the provincial environment for entrepreneurship and overall corporate competitiveness. This includes projects as varied as mentorship programming, entrepreneurship education services, angel investment incentives and productivity measurement.

Graeme Webb is in the PhD program in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He earned his MA in Political Science at the University of Saskatchewan where he examined the relationship between creative social entrepreneurs, social capital and networked urban governance. From 2007 to 2011 he was actively involved with the Innovation Systems Research Network examining the social dynamics of economic development. He has also been a researcher for the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration. His doctoral research combines communication theory and political sociology through an investigation into the relationship between communication technologies and the organizational forms of self-governance that emerge in civil society within cities (i.e. how communities are produced and reproduced through media).

Dr. Camille D. Ryan is a Professional Research Associate with the Departments of Plant Science and Bioresource Policy, Business and Economics at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, splitting time between there and her home in the Alberta Foothills. Prior to joining the University, she worked for a small plant biotech firm in Saskatoon and in administration with Aggreko (now Bayer), where she was part of the effort to bring Liberty Link (GM) canola to the market in the mid-1990s. She has worked on projects with the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Alberta Advanced Education and Technology, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission. Recently, she was connected to the Institute of Agriculture at the University of Western Australia working on a project evaluating public private partnerships in pulse breeding and research in Canada and Australia. Dr. Ryan has presented at conferences around the world on collaborations in plant genetic resources, access and benefits sharing, intellectual property strategies, issues management in agriculture and science communications. An avid blogger and Twitterer, she is also author of Evaluating Performance of Research Networks (VDM Verlag, 2008), a reference and resource for policy makers and project managers. ?