Using the Region to Win Globally: Japanese and South Korean Innovations

How can the capacity for creating and exploiting knowledge in the context of Regional Innovation Systems be developed as a means to constructing regional advantage? This Hot Topic addresses this question, in reviewing policies and developments in Japan and South Korea. As well as explaining approaches to regionalism and innovation in these two countries the paper also invites reflection on how these East Asian approaches compare, and what they mean in particular for the countries of Europe and North America.

In the globalising knowledge economy, institutions of higher education and research have a pivotal role to play. They are now portrayed as vital sources of knowledge, seedbeds of innovation and engines of growth, making major contributions to the economic, social and cultural development of their societies. This has meant new expectations to be fulfilled by these institutions. The difficult question is how to translate them into relevant policy measures and institutional reforms. One approach in this context followed in most OECD countries has been attempts to strengthen the regional role and contribution of higher education institutions (HEIs), based on close cooperation and partnership with various regional actors. (Project Aide memoire, p. 1)

This Hot Topic is intended to take this agenda forward, with a particular emphasis on 'whether or not the re-positioning of universities as part of the wider society actually fosters the emergence of new national and regional innovation systems, creating constructed advantage as part of the global knowledge economy'. Nowhere is this demand for constructing regional innovation systems by vitalising the role of HEIs in the process as a means of promoting the balanced regional development more clear than in Korea. The concentration of population and economic activities in the so-called Capital Region (Seoul, Incheon and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province) has been one of the most dominant spatial patterns in the process of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation in Korea. Since the inception of the current Roh administration in February 2003, the government has given much higher priority to balanced regional development by introducing a new conceptual framework employing regional governance, a regional innovation system, partnerships between relevant actors, and so on. This policy direction was further reinforced by promulgating The Special Law on Balanced National Development, passed in December 2003.

Structured research on the role of HEIs in regional innovation systems in Korea has been scarce. Moreover, a comparative study with other countries in this field by an international expert has been even more scarce which make this hot topic highly valuable, and a must to read for those who are interested in the specific patterns of Science and Technology, innovation policy and the role of HEIs in Korea and Japan, in the context of regional innovation systems.

In preparing the hot topic, the author takes advantage of her experience of participating, as a peer reviewer, in a recent OECD/IMHE project Supporting the contribution of HEIs to regional development [1] in which some 14 regions in 12 countries including Korea are currently involved. In this regard, the hot topic may also serve as a vehicle to introduce good practices and issues addressed in the OECD project to policy-makers and practitioners actively seeking best practices in this field.

Kiyong BYUN, Ph. D Head, Graduate School Reform Team Korean Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development