National development banks (NDBs) have transformed from outdated relics of national industrial policy to central pillars of the European Union's economic project. This trend, which accelerated after the Financial Crisis of 2007, has led to a proliferation of NDBs with an expanded size and scope. However, it is surprising that the EU — which has championed market-oriented governance and strict competition policy — has actually advocated for an expansion of NDBs. This book therefore asks, Why has the EU supported an increased role for NDBs, and how can we understand the dynamics between NDBs and European incentives and constraints? To answer these questions, the contributing authors analyze the formation and evolution of a field of development banking within the EU, identifying a new field around an innovative conceptualization of state-backed financing for the purposes of policy implementation. Yet rather than focusing solely on national development banks, the authors instead broaden the focus to the entire ecosystem of the field of development banking, which includes political institutions (both in Brussels and in the member states), financing vehicles (such as the Juncker Plan), regulatory bodies (Directorate-General for Competition, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs), and commercial actors. Seven in-depth case studies on European NDBs, along with three chapters on European-level actors, detail this field of development banking, and answer the questions of when, where, and how development banking occurs within the EU.

This report provides an independent and comparative assessment of the overall performance of Kazakhstan’s innovation system since independence, with recommendations on improving performance drawing on the experience of other OECD countries in innovation processes, systems and policies. While ...

This book uses a range of S&T and structural indicators to analyse the transfonnation process, in particular the transfonnation of science, technology and industry, in the fonner communist countries. The book originates from a sense of the tremendous need for quantitative indicators for assessing trends and perfonnance in the post-socialist economies. S&T systems in the region have passed through the first phase of rapid deterioration, or as it is called by some analysts 'implosion'. After ten years of transfonnation we are witnessing a process of increasing differentiation of these countries in tenns of general patterns of growth and structural change, as well as specific lines of restructuring in their S&T systems. The question of sources of growth - or indeed of stagnation - is an increasingly urgent one, from both the policy and academic perspectives. In that context there is a pressing need for in-depth assessment of restructuring patterns in science, technology and industry in the region, as a basis for understanding how restructuring in S&T is linked to industrial restructuring, and to general economic and social transfonnation. As the contributions to this volume show, there is now a critical mass of quantitative data across the post-socialist countries which deserves to be studied more thoroughly in a comparative manner. The changes of the last ten years have produced varying patterns of adjustment which are now clearly visible in S&T and structural indicators.

While the nations of Central and Eastern Europe transform their economies from a planning and centralized control towards free market systems, they face the need to formulate their R&D priorities and to change their systems of innovation. The problems of restructuring the R&D and innovation systems of the post-socialist countries have so far been treated as marginal. It is a fact that progress in science, technology, and innovation-related policy-making in the transitional countries has been rather modest and has largely failed to keep pace with other areas of social, political, and economic change. There is relatively little recognition of the growing importance of knowledge. One of the tools that may help the modernization of R&D and innovation-related policy-making is the training and retraining of policy-makers and knowledge and innovative managers. Moreover, it is important to equip them with the tools to take advantage of the various financing possibilities available for innovation. This book attempts to explore the different dimensions of innovation and how it relates to R&D development and financing in a set of eastern and central European countries.The matter of funding for innovation (especially, but not only EU support) is both sensitive and important, and is considered in this book.

LIBER, the principal association of research libraries in Europe, was founded in 1971, under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The driving force behind the new association was a small dedicated group of European librarians, led by Jean-Pierre Clavel, Director of the Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire, Lausanne. Their goal was to give European research libraries, national and university, a distinctive and compelling voice in the international library community. The chosen name LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche) was redolent of both books and freedom. This history, covering the years from 1971 to 2009, documents a unique period in European history. The continent of Europe was divided into two separate blocs of West and East with very few contacts between librarians and scholars; in the late 1980s came the sudden collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and its consequences for libraries; and, thereafter, there arrived a ?new dawn? of renewed contacts between librarians and restored co-operation between research libraries across the whole of Europe leading to the robust research network that is being built today. The book also charts the revolution in information technology in European research libraries and its profound effects on how libraries serve their users. In this process, LIBER has played an active role in encouraging and developing a strong network of research libraries across Europe and in fostering positive co-operation among European research libraries. The author is the eminent Finnish national and university librarian and scholar Professor Esko Häkli, himself a former president of LIBER. He has meticulously researched the history of LIBER in a period of profound social and political change in Europe. From this rich background, he has woven an engrossing and yet contemplative account of LIBER's early struggles and successes in its mission to give European research libraries a distinctive voice.

Pt. 1. Setting the scene -- pt. 2. Entrepreneurship and small business development in former Soviet republics -- pt. 3. Entrepreneurship and small business development in Central and Eastern Europe -- pt. 4. The way forward.

The triple helix of university–industry–government interactions is a universal model for the development of the knowledge-based society, through innovation and entrepreneurship. It draws from the innovative practice of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with industry and government in inventing a regional renewal strategy in early 20th-century New England. Parallel experiences were identified in “Silicon Valley,” where Stanford University works together with industry and government. Triple helix is identified as the secret of such innovative regions. It may also be found in statist or laissez-faire societies, globally. The triple helix focuses on “innovation in innovation” and the dynamic to foster an innovation ecosystem, through various hybrid organizations, such as technology transfer offices, venture capital firms, incubators, accelerators, and science parks. This second edition develops the practical and policy implications of the triple helix model with case studies exemplifying the meta-theory, including: • how to make an innovative region through the triple helix approach; • balancing development and sustainability by “triple helix twins"; • triple helix matrix to analyze regional innovation globally; and • case studies on the Stanford's StartX accelerator; the Ashland, Oregon Theater Arts Clusters; and Linyi regional innovation in China. The Triple Helix as a universal innovation model can assist students, researchers, managers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to understand the roles of university, industry, and government in forming and developing “an innovative region,” which has self-renewal and sustainable innovative capacity.

The innovation capacity-building can contribute to improve the integration of developing countries in the world economy. The economic development has been a much discussed subject of the period after the Second World War until the 1990s. After the implementation of a global regulation system for trade and capital flows in the 1990s, the development economics has almost disappeared in favor of different theories on globalization, on finance and on international trade. The purpose of this book is to show that the innovation capacity building in developing countries is necessary to improve their weight in the world economy and to facilitate their economic ties with northern countries. However, there are important difficulties due to the lack of proactive economic policies. Our aim is to contribute to the revival of the development economics. The issue of improving the well-being of the world population as a whole is highly topical. However, studies neglect the need to give economic, financial, technological and political resources to developing countries to promote their own development. One of the most important means is to strengthen their innovation capabilities that allow them to better integrate into the world economy.