FUTURE KNOWLEDGE ECOSYSTEMS
The Next 20 Years of Technology-Led Economic Development
ANTHONY TOWNSEND | Institute for the Future
ALEX SOOJUNG-KIM PANG | Institute for the Future
RICK WEDDLE | Research Triangle Foundation
MODELS & PLACES FOR R&D
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
CREATING SCENARIOS
ECONOMY & SOCIETY
TRENDS
SHAPING
THE FUTURE
CREATING THE FORECAST
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY PARKS 3.0
DEMATERIALIZED INNOVATION
FURTHER READING
STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS
a field guide to the future of science parks and technology-led economic development
COMING THIS FALL!
IASP
September 2008
Johannesburg | South Africa
AURP
December 2008
St. Petersburg | Florida | USA
IEDC
January 2009
Tempe | Arizona | USA
Online
March 2009
4 expert workshops
Institute for the Future analysis on
science & technology, innovation, and cities
The Group Economy
From Free Markets to
Stimulus Capitalism
The Rise of Ecological Economics
 global developments that will set the context for enterprises of every kind
Biology By Design
Ubiquitous Computing
From AI to
Hybrid Sensemaking
New Scientists
Science Institutions Transformed
Global Map of Science
Lightweight Innovation
Making Know-how "Sticky"
Small, Social Research Spaces
We focused on 4 trends are highly uncertain...

...to shape 3 scenarios of plausible 
 futures for science parks.
THE FUTURE OF UNIVERSITIES

Some will evolve into economic engines,
others may retreat to the ivory tower.
ENERGY / ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS

How will the sustainability of different innovation systems be measured and benchmarked? 
NEW SCIENCE INSTITUTIONS

Where will the new networks of  science meet-up?
FUTURE OF BIO-INDUSTRY

Who will drive innovation?
Top-down or bottom up?
How fast will breakthroughs come?
Installing an upgrade module
The Network Oasis
(Joensuu Science Park, Finland)
Research parks are still recognizable to us... 
...but they have upgraded to the next “version”.
Mixed use / entrepreneurial
SkySong Innovation Center
(Arizona, USA)
Incremental change
What It Might Look Like
Installing a new operating system
North Carolina Research Parks Network
(North Carolina, USA)
www.iftf.org/iasp
full paper
to last year, when many of us visited the first science park in Southern Africa...

the Innovation Hub
...but what will Africa's NEXT science park look like?
Better yet, fast forward to 2030...
And imagine what African inventors might do with new, inexpensive tools...
Imagine South Africans using these tools to create thousands of innovations

...for Africa, and for the world.
a MIT-designed
"reality-mining sociometer"
Regional Knowledge Ecosystems
Networks of independent co-ops

What It Might Look Like
THE RISE OF RESEARCH "CLOUDS"
Research parks are challenged by "clouds"...

...regional networks of small spaces for R&D,
tied together by social software.
Disruptive transformation from outside
Rich, agile clusters with many spaces & players
R&D goes virtual, and the research park model is
in rapid decline
Research parks are in deep trouble...

...their economic model undermined
by high costs of R&D.
Big projects stalled or cancelled
What It Might Look Like
Alternate "spaces" for collaboration
"Sweating the asset"
R&D hotelling?
Knowledge spot markets flourish
Business models: From products to services
Making know-how sticky
"From managing dirt to managing activity"
cloud computing
...and imagine this happening
not in a science park
 
but in the warehouses and garages of...

open source software
rapid prototyping and fabrication
desktop
biotechnology
it was an impressive &
ambitious place...
Let's start talking about the future,
by going back in time...
This is an unfamiliar, but plausible future scenario.

If you knew this would come true, 
what would you do different today?
Questions?

Talk to me after the session or email me

atownsend@iftf.org

knowledge commons
FUTURE KNOWLEDGE ECOSYSTEMS
ANTHONY TOWNSEND | Institute for the Future
ALEX SOOJUNG-KIM PANG | Institute for the Future
RICK WEDDLE | Research Triangle Foundation
The Next 20 Years of Technology-Led Economic Development
Social networks that  unite scattered workers into collaborative "organizations"
telepresence
virtual worlds (IBM Innovation Jam)
Park can thrive in any of these scenarios....
...but it will require strategies and business models to adapt to future forces
old - buildings, sites, infrastructure
new - research “hotels”, incubation, knowledge commons
supporting enterprises that build on unique local assets
innovation on the shop floor:
re-mixing manufacturing and R&D

re-inventing local clusters
Institute for the Future Forecast on
Universities: From Ivory Tower to Economic Engine
Soweto
Re-assessing
assessment tools
Peer-to-peer microfinance
First...
these are the foundations for 
three scenarios of science parks in 2030.
US R&D spending
Universities
Sustainability
Bio-Industry
Science Networks
Universities
Sustainability
Bio-Industry
Science Networks
Universities
Sustainability
Bio-Industry
Science Networks
student entrepreneurs
faculty incentives for
commercial R&D, entrepreneurship
Parks are changing slowly because
univerisites are changing quickly
lots of experimentation with 
new tech transfer and IP frameworks
The one area parks are doing some calculated risk-taking
Parks become "living labs"
for sustainable design
Some parks are "better than neutral" and sell carbon credits (or give them to tenants)
Manageable, but expensive transition to clean energy
The recession pushed big pharma into  early-stage funding of biotech
Parks become a great place to co-locate big companies with their "innovation portfolio"
The most successful parks are those that create good places for translational R&D
Parks are participating in online networks,
but aren't the main hubs
A spur on the Science 2.0 superhighway
elite schools slow to engage the many new spaces popping up around them
Some parks might even disengage from universities to focus on connecting to the cloud
Universities with less resources see opportunity: incremental cloud development
vs. massive investment in research campuses
Clouds put "legacy" parks at a disadvantage
They are hard to define, 
hard to measure, 
hard to footprint
Parks are big targets for
carbon taxes and watchdogs
Clouds use space much
more intensely (>50%) and efficiently
But in the cloud, highly distributed R&D is working
Most experts thought biotech needed
more vertical integration, fewer networks
Not solving every problem, but
making some big breakthroughs
Pioneering open models for
sharing knowledge and IP
Research clouds have no institutions to start with,
so they have to invent new ones
They become -the- hubs where new science networks convene
..and so they become what universities seek   to re-capture - welcoming, transdisciplinary and open idea factories

With few successes to show for sacrifices, some universities retreating from tech transfer efforts
Distance learning took off during the recession,
now highly appealing alternative - formal and p2p
On the way to becoming
very expensive coffee shops
Dematerializing helps companies lower the carbon footprint of R&D activities
But parks could have a big role
as event spaces, if they re-invent
their infrastructure their business models
Virtualization a way to keep ROI on R&D up,
despite stagnant productivity
Push carbon off the books - offshore, 
home-based workers, crowds, etc.
But because parks didn't build places 
for translational R&D...

....nobody did,
so fewer breakthroughs.
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
hosted conversations - Google Wave
(CoWo, Milano, Italy; Adams Morgan Works, Washington, DC , USA)
MIT and surrounds - Cambridge, Mass., USA)
(Science In The Trangle blog; Freelancers Union on facebook.com)
Much of what they offer can be replicated online
If the research cloud scenario is about scattering R&D across new kinds of more small-scale, intimate spaces

this scenario is about getting rid of as much physical stuff as possible.
Virtual R&D can do incremental innovation well
New science networks are
disconnected from parks...
(UNLV Research & Technology Park, Nevada, USA;
Saint Petersburg Technopark, Russia)