Science and Technology Parks, Areas of Innovation, government, universities, civil society and business where are they going in the innovation race and what should S&TPs be doing to help anchor innovation in a region?

Innovation has always been a major force in social and economic change. Its importance to business in gaining a competitive advantage and to governments in resolving economic, social and environmental challenges has attracted significant levels of investment and has been the focus of public policy and many theories about creating the optimum conditions for the process to thrive. Recent thinking about the optimum conditions is that in addition to the roles of government, businesses and universities, labour and financial institutions should be added as important stakeholders because of the relevance of entrepreneurs and the role of micro-technology companies and SMEs in the open innovation model. This paper reviews both the historic and current UK policies and thinking in relation supporting innovation from the particular perspective of Science and Technology Parks (S&TPs) and Areas of Innovation (AIs).