Summary

Support policies increasingly depend on the capacity of technology parks to contribute to the development of entrepreneurship, to participate in cluster initiatives, to generate spillover effects, and more generally to enhance the regional culture of innovation. For policy makers, parks and technopoles are not to be developed for their own sake but must contribute to the building of learning regions and knowledge-based territorial economies.  According to many authors, cross-fertilization is at the heart of technopole projects, bringing together, within the same location, of high-technology activities, research centers, companies, universities, and financial institutions. Contacts between these entities Is promoted in such a manner as to produce synergies from which new ideas and technological innovation can emerge, and therefore trigger off the creation of new companies.  The organisation of technopoloes and science parks can be explained as an attempt to increase innovation by minimizing the transaction costs due to institutionalized constraints that previously hindered collaboration by economic bodies. Technopoles and science parks therefore play a new and dynamic role in the special division of labour that characterizes contemporary industrial organisation.  

This guidebook provides science park decision makers with a number of tools helping them manage a park. A number of strategic options are presented, and in this respect the guidebook can assist the decision making process. It can also help to benchmark a park with parks in other countries.

Regarding the more practical aspects, the guidebook presents a number of checklists which can be used when assessing projects. It provides information on how to proceed with a potential tenant. It emphasizes ways to search for partners, manage innovative projects, and identify investors. Its many diagrams and figures can assist tenants in understanding the functioning of a park and finding solutions to strategic issues and financing problems.   

Authors: The guidebook is the result of the cooperation between the European Investment Bank, the World Bank, Medibitikar and the City of Marseille.

Important contributions to this guide have been made by INNOVA Group experts: Aleardo FURLANI, Rebeca LUCAS and  Ikbel TLILI

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