A review of the infrastructure, governance, business support and services in market led science and technology parks as a framework for the planning and development of science and technology parks in different country cultures

There is worldwide interest in the development of science and technology parks (STPs). Today in addition to those in Europe and the USA there are strong science park movements in South America, India, and China and interest from a number of Western Asian and African countries. Clearly there are differences between these countries which will affect the development of STPs. In all definitions of science parks there are at least two common themes. One refers to real estate and the other reflects the intention to support the creation and growth of existing and new knowledge based businesses, which is part of an interest in extracting wealth from technology. However, the characterisation of science parks in these definitions hides a number of real differences in the science park models that have been developed. This difference reflects the prevailing economic, technology and social conditions of the locations in which these have been developed. This paper looks to identify the differences in the nature of different science and technology park models against both the level of scientific competence at a regional and national level and land value. To do this the paper reviews some of the development strategies, structures for governance, and innovation strategies that have been put in place for science and technology parks. The conclusions of this paper is that science parks have evolved into a wide range of land use models and, the extent of the business development support services continues to increase as a mainstream science park activity but to be really effective these sites need to integrate into a effective innovation systems. This paper attempts to provide a background of detail against which those either planning or running parks can consider their developments.