Fostering Innovation Clusters; The Growing Role of Policies

Faced with the challenges of fostering regional growth and employment in an increasingly competitive global economy, many U.S. states and regions have developed programs to attract and grow companies as well as draw the talent and resources necessary to develop innovation clusters. These state and regionally based initiatives have a broad range of goals and increasingly include significant resources, often with a sector focus and often in partnership with foundations, universities and the private sector. Increasingly, they seek to leverage complementary federal programs to support the development of regional centers of innovation, entrepreneurship, and high-technology development. These developments mark a significant change in paradigm in the United States where, for much of the Twentieth Century, states pursued technology-based development primarily by seeking to recruit companies from other states by offering a more competitive business and regulatory environment, lower taxes, supportive government policies, and financial and infrastructure incentives. This paper describes this evolution and illustrates this change with the contrasting approaches being taken in Ohio and New York to grow innovation clusters.