Urban Studies, Vol. 40, No.

7, 13531369, 2003

Local Innovation Assemblages and Institutional

Capacity in Local High-tech Economic
Development: The Case of Oxfordshire

Helen Lawton Smith

[Paper first received, November, 2001; in final form, August, 2002]

Summary. The paper discusses the processes by which local innovation systems develop. Its
theme is agenda-setting discourses and the representation of high-tech firms interests at local
and national scales. Using the case study of Oxfordshire, it discusses the relationship between
innovation and the development of institutional ensembles. Adopting an historical perspective, it
shows how what was a local system has attained greater significance as the political importance
of innovation grows in national and regional agendas. To do so, it investigates the plurality of
arrangements or coalitions of interests which operate through networks based on The Oxford
Trust, a local charitable trust. These networks provide means of co-ordinating resources
available to start-up and growing small high-tech firms in Oxfordshire.

Introduction
The knowledge economy, with innovation as value activities variously prioritising knowl-
the driving-force, has become synonymous edge spillovers, networks and facilitating
with the new regional economic agenda. institutional environments (see for example,
Within policy arenas there has been a blur- Scott, 1988; Maskell and Malmberg, 1999;
ring of discourses about how to promote and Storper, 1997).
successful regions with agendas about enter- What the two literatures have in common
prise and innovation within the knowledge is that the focus in each has tended to be on
economy (see Cooke and Morgan, 1998; collective action rather than the agency of
Braczyk et al., 1998) as, by default, inno- enterprising individuals in shaping develop-
vation and local governance systems have ments. This oversimplifies the relationship of
become intertwined. Yet in the academic causality of agency and structure and misses
literature there remains a divide between, on an understanding of the growth of institu-
the one hand, discussions of governance and tional assemblages built around particular
state forms (see Jessop, 1990; Jones, 1998; local agendas. What is often not explained is
MacLeod, 1999, Goodwin et al., 2002) and, why and how a group of individuals acting
on the other, the new industrial spaces type on their own or their organisations behalf
literature which focuses on high-skill, high- develops specialist expertise which translates
Helen Lawton Smith is in the Centre for Local Economic Development, Coventry Business School, Coventry University, Priory Street,
Coventry, CV1 5FB, UK. Fax: 01865 271 929. E-mail: h.lawtonsmith@coventry.ac.uk. The author would like to thank two anonymous
referees and John Tulloch for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. She would also like to thank the Royal
Geographical Society and the Institute of British Geographers for funding the original study through the HSBC Small Grants Award
Scheme.

0042-0980 Print/1360-063X On-line/03/07135317 2003 The Editors of Urban Studies

DOI: 10.1080/0042098032000084640
1354 HELEN LAWTON SMITH
into a collective, co-ordinated local/regional
responsible mode of governance.
This theme is developed using the case
study of Oxfordshire, one of the UKs lead-
ing centres of high-technology enterprise and
scientific and engineering research as an ex-
emplar. The two main issues the paper will
address are: does innovation stem from the
institutional assemblage or does the assem-
blage emerge from the processes of inno-
vation? Further, does one see the emergence
of effective governance by non-state agen-
cies (or do they constitute the state)? The
present thesis is that individuals, both en-
trepreneurs and other protagonists, are re-
sponsible for setting in train locally specific
endogenous processes by producing new and
important local discourses. It is individuals
whose agency is derived from context, per-
sonality and willingness to work with other
experts in particular geo-cultural historical
contexts that produce an assemblage which
emerges from the innovation process. In turn,
their discourses have a reinforcing effect,
facilitating the process of innovation. The
paper is therefore concerned with how
different individuals dominate in different
issue areas (Dowding, 2001, p. 8; quoting
Dahl). The discussion is about when individ-
uals authority (expertise) is recognised by
other people (Allen, 2000, p. 216). Here,
power is defined in terms of agenda-setting
discourses, which have the effect of bringing
into play resources, within or in the absence
of policy frameworks.
The paper adopts an historical perspective
examining the changing entrepreneurial, pol-
itical and spatial context in which a local
innovation governance system has devel-
oped. It illustrates the relationship between
conditions of growing high-tech activity and
the development of locally specific forms of
institutions and incorporation as quasi-state
actors. Conceptually, this can be understood
as an innovation filiere (Lawton Smith, 2000)
comprising political and technical elements
of innovation systems producing particular
geographies of technological change. It will
be argued that, since the 1980s, three differ-
ent governmental and academic discourses
have been constructed around enterprise and
innovation. The first discourse in the 1980s
within the loose framework of Thatcherite
policies was about individuals and en-
trepreneurship. Secondly, in the 1990s, this
was joined by the national policy agenda of
the valorisation of public-sector research.
Thirdly, the debate has been about enterprise
valorisation regional development.
Governmental and associated academic dis-
courses will provide the framework for
examination of a case study of innovation
support institutions. It is argued that such
institutions in themselves have become
quasi-public projects, becoming part of a sys-
tem of innovation governance engaging with
state institutions regionally and nationally.
The character of the Oxfordshire inno-
vation governance system is that it is focused
on a local charitable trust, The Oxford Trust,
and encompasses a group of experts from
domains such as law, property, finance, local
authorities, Oxford Brookes University and
increasingly Oxford University. As the
county has developed as a centre for en-
trepreneurial activity, each from their own
interests is acting on behalf of the growing
high-tech sector, meeting its demands for
finance, property and so on. Continuity has
been important. Over time, as people have
got to know each other, a series of indepen-
dent initiatives taken in the private and pub-
lic sectors have become connected,
co-ordinated and institutionalised because of
the practical advantages of working together.
This institutional capacity further provides
the means of identifying and meeting the
needs of the high-tech sector.
Enterprise, Innovation and Technological
Change
To address the issue of whether innovation
stems from the institutional assemblage or
whether the ensemblage emerges from the
processes of innovation, it is necessary to
consider the increasing complexity of the
innovation process. Firms almost never inno-
vate in isolation. They interact with other
organisations to gain and develop various
 LOCAL INNOVATION ASSEMBLAGES
kinds of knowledge, information and other
resources (Acs, 2000, p. 3). Numerous
definitions of innovation encompass techni-
cal product and process advances, but often
include the organisational and institutional
changes which accompany them (Edquist,
1997, p. 10). Combined, these are defined in
concepts of geographically defined inno-
vation systems (national and regional; see for
example, Lundvall, 1992; Carlsson, 1995;
McKelvey, 1997) and technologically fo-
cused systems (sectoral/spatial) of various
kinds (see for example, Oinas and Malecki,
2002; Dicken and Malmberg, 2001). Edquist
makes the important observation that
Some elements of systems of innovation
are consciously designed by actors
sometimes government policy-makers.
Other important elements seem to be
evolving spontaneously over extended
time-periods (Edquist, 1997, p. 14).
Innovation then in its broader sense com-
bines interactions between technical innova-
tors and a range of public and private service
providers who facilitate innovation. Of the
latter, governments intervene to tackle
broader societal objectives of improving wel-
fare through boosting innovation while the
private sector acts through the identification
of business opportunities.
Within the first phase of loosely framed
governmental discourse, in the 1980s, aca-
demic debate was about spontaneity. It was
about individuals rather than systems. The
residential preferences of the highly skilled
founders and employees (see Keeble, 1989;
Saxenian, 1988), the significance of highly
articulate individuals such as entrepreneurial
academics (such as Frederick Terman at
Stanford; see Saxenian, 1994) and enlight-
ened bankers (Segal Quince, 1985) were key
themes. At that time, local non-state and state
innovation support was in its infancy. There
was space for the emergence of local inno-
vation networks.
Later, following Schumpeter, came the
recognition that entrepreneurs are both criti-
cal agents in the innovation process and
agents of change within local systems.1
1355
Schumpeter (1934; in Witt, 2002) argued that
entrepreneurs are the only agents who are
capable of carrying out new combinations of
resources and transforming organisational
forms. They are promoters of innovation.
Others, in developing this idea, have empha-
sised that their success spontaneously
changes the local environment and to a
greater or lesser extent the local economic
structure, thus stimulating the local environ-
ment to further innovation and localised
learning (see Garnsey, 1998; Feldman and
Francis, 2002). Garnsey (1998) argues that
clusters of entrepreneurial activity create a
demand for, amongst other things, finance
and then for interactions or networks be-
tween different local groups, which are met
by what she calls self-organisation. Processes
of co-evolution whereby interdependent, co-
evolving units can transform their local en-
vironment without deliberate co-ordination
or planning are facilitated through networks.
Through exchange and feedback effects of
innovation, resources are cumulatively gen-
erated for the locality (Garnsey, 1998,
p. 373). For example, in Cambridge a busi-
ness sector has grown around the provision
of specialist expertise for R&D-intensive
firms including risk capital (business angels,
knowledgeable venture capitalists), specialist
property (such as clean rooms, incubators, or
designed with image in mind), patent agents
and so on (Keeble et al., 1999).
In the approach adopted by Feldman and
Francis and by Garnsey, agency is assigned
to individuals whereas, in evolutionary eco-
nomics, institutions rather than individuals
are a central unit of analysis (Hodgson, 1993,
p. 252). Self-organisation allows for actors to
act independently rather than their actions
being shaped and limited by pre-existing in-
stitutional frameworks. Thus the causality is
that, in some contexts, processes of inno-
vation create the institutional ensemble. But
the agency of actors other than entrepreneurs
who speed the dynamics of change by sup-
porting innovation is also important. While
Feldman and Garnsey treat those groups that
become engaged in networks as collective
entities, individuals who represent organisa-
1356 HELEN LAWTON SMITH
tions need to be as entrepreneurial and expert
as technical innovators for an innovation
support system to be effective.
In the second phase, from the middle of
the 1980s to the 1990s, governmental and
academic discourse in UK national inno-
vation policy was about capitalising on
knowledge. Two events are particularly
significant. The first was when the exploi-
tation of the science base became a political
priority. The ending of British Technology
Groups right of first refusal of inventions
arising from publicly funded research in uni-
versities in 1985 was a milestone in that it
gave universities more independence in the
exploitation of the intellectual property gen-
erated by their researchers. The govern-
ments intention of driving universities
towards exploitation was laid down in the
1988 White Paper DTI: Department for
Enterprise. This was followed by a series of
initiatives resulting from the 1993 White
Paper Realising our Potential which led to
the restructuring of a major sector of the
science basethe national laboratoriesand
a series of mechanisms designed to encour-
age technology transfer out of those and the
universities. The function of these organisa-
tions was therefore changing which in turn
had local as well as national consequences.
The election of the Labour government in
1997 brought a new set of political agendas
and the third discourse about enterprise, val-
orisation of research and the territorialisation
of innovation processes. This is defined as
making universities and regional develop-
ment agencies responsible for innovation in a
geographical area. Unlike earlier periods, the
innovation system is much more planned.
The 1998 White Paper Our Competitive
Future contained a checklist of commitments
for building UK capabilities, in which the
growth of knowledge-based industry has as-
sumed a priority. The Sainsbury Report on
biotechnology clusters (1999, p. 22)
identified Oxford as being one of three target
areas where the UK government should di-
rect resources to build on existing strengths.
The Regional Development Agencies estab-
lished in April 1999 were part of the territori-
alisation of the innovation process being
given responsibilities, although little money,
for supporting excellence. They are another
layer to the system of innovation support. In
practice, they are critically dependent on cen-
tral government decisions on the spatial loca-
tion of R&D spending and have no control
over a range of policies, including regional
innovation strategies, which affect regional
economic performance (see Charles and Ben-
neworth, 2001, p. 73). This point brings local
initiatives back into the loop because of the
essentially local components of innovation.
The State and Governance
Having argued both that innovation stems
from local institutional ensembles and that
the ensemble stimulates innovation, the next
issue is whether these effects constitute ef-
fective governance by non-state agencies or
whether they constitute the state. Important
to the argument here is a conceptualisation of
the institutional ensemble. It was argued ear-
lier that these are comprised of a series of
networked individuals and organisations who
have power to bring resources into being
through associational power (Allen, 1997)
and construct agenda-setting discourses. Net-
work-rich places being able to generate pos-
sibilities, they are deemed to be more
effective than non-networked places. This is
because networks themselves are conduits of
power. They become part of the process by
which people/firms/organisations have the
capacity to organise around growth issues
due to their local embeddedness (Cox, 1998,
p. 23)in this case, support for enterprise
and innovation.
Another way of looking at such coalitions
of interests and which refocuses attention on
individual agency is to define a group of
collaborating experts as an elite. An elite
comprises those who occupy a position of
superiority within a society or group by vir-
tue of excellence or distinction (Bullock and
Stallybrass, 1977). While this definition does
not presuppose that members of an elite work
collectively for a common aim, when they
do, their power is related to their ability to
 LOCAL INNOVATION ASSEMBLAGES
stimulate discourses around particular inter-
estsfor example, economic development.
Swyngedouw supports the view that the
existence of a close and hegemonic growth
coalition that weaves together public and
private elites plays a foundational role in
generating and maintaining competitive
spaces. He argues that
Such coalitions play a pivotal role in gen-
erating and mobilising financial means, the
establishment of formal or informal net-
works and institutions or networks, the
co-ordination of key power brokers in the
areas (Swyngedouw, 2000, pp. 551552).
Agenda-setting is thus central to this dis-
cussion of what Swyngedouw (2000,
pp. 554555) calls articulated economic
spaces. While Swyngedouw raises questions
about who decides and controls paths of
economic change, the discussion in this pa-
per is not about growth coalitions and regime
theory. The distinction is made here between,
on the one hand, agenda-setting with regard
to facilitation and identification of common
interests (the articulated economic spaces
idea)as is the case of the Oxfordshire
eliteand Foucauldian or even C. Wright
Mills notions of power and control on the
other. Whether, when elites cohere around
the promotion of innovation and en-
trepreneurship, they comprise the state and/
or a system of governance depends on
definitions of the state and of governance and
the desirability of non-state action.
Jessop defines the state as
a specific institutional ensemble with mul-
tiple boundaries, no institutional fixity and
no pre-given formal or substantive unity.
[and where] State power can only be
assessed relationally. The state as such has
no powerit is merely an institutional
ensemble; it has only a set of institutional
capacities and liabilities which mediate
that power; the power of the state is the
power of the forces acting in and through
the state. These forces include state man-
agers as well as class forces, gender
groups as well as regional interests, and so
1357
forth. State power also depends on the
forms and nature of resistance to state
interventionsboth directly and at a dis-
tance from the state (Jessop, 1990,
pp. 267270; in MacLeod, 1999).
Using Jessops approach, the state also en-
compasses other institutions at national and
sub-national levels which take on the state
role of welfare through innovation and en-
hanced economic performance. However,
Stoker (2000) and others in defining gover-
nance separate the state as a unity by distin-
guishing private from public actors. Stoker
defines governance as
the capacity to get things done through
collective action in the realm of public
affairs, in conditions where it is not poss-
ible to rest on recourse to the state (Stoker,
2000, p. 3).
The centrality of the state or the desirability
of its centrality in governance systems is
debated both in democratic and efficiency
terms. Hirst (1994), for example, argues for
greater subsidiarity and decentralisation in
the best interests of society (associative
democracy). His thesis is that the aim is to
reduce both the scale and scope of affairs of
society that are administered by state agen-
cies and overseen by representative institu-
tions. He makes the central normative claim
that individual liberty and human welfare are
best served when many of the affairs of
society are managed by voluntary and demo-
cratically self-governing associations (p. 19).
He further argues that subsidiarity would
involve two processes: the state should cede
functions to such associations; and the means
to the creation of an associative order in civil
society are built up. Like Storper (1995) and
others, Hirst argues that an associative econ-
omy embedded in strong local institutions is
likely to prove both innovative and tenacious
and that the institutions of economic gover-
nance are able to create sufficient levels of
solidarity and trust between members of
economic associations and between those as-
sociations (Hirst, 1994, p. 99). Through a
matching process, networks contribute to re-
1358 HELEN LAWTON SMITH
source availability, translated into some sort
of resource capacity. Hirst argues that, in the
case of industrial districts and economic gov-
ernance, there needs to be a focal point for
association or a sponsor (pp. 137138). At
the most formal, this might be a corporatist
forum such as a regional economic chamber.
The academic as well as policy popularity of
the concept of regional innovation systems
(Braczyk et al., 1998) is due, as in Hirst, to
this ideal of empowerment.
Following Hirst, it will be argued that The
Oxford Trust is the focal point for association
and, in Hirsts terms, is democratic. The point
of departure from Jones (1998, pp. 961962)
is not, as he puts it, incorporating interest-
groups into the state apparatus for the pur-
poses of economic development. Rather, in
this case, it is the other way round. In the case
of Oxfordshire, state institutions have been
incorporated into an elite coalition of mainly
private organisations, at the heart of which is
The Oxford Trust.
Innovation, Institutional Capacity and the
Changing Oxfordshire High-tech Economy
Jones (1998, p. 969) asks, Under what cir-
cumstances do different interest-groups come
together as a coalition and what are the ma-
terial gainsthe levers and the drivers? In
this case, the issue is how the interests of
entrepreneurs, research institutions, private-
sector professionals and institutions of the
state to varying degrees in different places
become engaged in the governance of inno-
vation. The focus is on the nature of local
discourses, the issue of direction of causality
in exploring how the Oxfordshire innovation
support ensemblage has emerged from the
processes of innovation. This in turn demon-
strates how different institutional frameworks
support different forms of economic activity.
Oxfordshire is now a centre of innovation and
research excellence and as such requires spe-
cial kinds of expertise which for political and
economic reasons have not, and in this con-
text could not, have been provided by statu-
tory bodies alone.
This has not always been so. In the 1960s,
Oxfordshire was a sparsely populated agricul-
tural county with a famous university and a
car factory. However, by the mid 1970s, the
origins of its later importance as a centre for
cryogenics, computing, instrumentation and
later biotechnology were there. Oxford
Instruments (1959), Research Machines
(1973), Oxford Lasers (1977) and Littlemore
Instruments (1954) were already established.
All had been formed either by Oxford Uni-
versity academics or by graduates. Other
firms such as Meta Machines (robotics),
Memotech (computers) came and went. The
county was a major location of big-science.
In the mid 1980s, the 7 government laborato-
ries located in Oxfordshire since the Second
World War employed around 10 000 people.
Table 1 records key dates in Oxfordshire and
those of changes in national policy.
From the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, the
Oxfordshire economy underwent a transform-
ation with: the decline of the car industry
which had employed 27 000 in the late 1960s
but only around 5000 by 1997; a rapid in-
crease in the formation rate of high-tech firms
and the arrival of the R&D departments of a
small number of predominantly US and
Japanese multinational firms; and, a clearly
identifiable institutional ensemble. During the
1980s, the high-tech sector grew from 190
firms employing 2000 people in the late
1980s (Lawton Smith, 1990) to some 543
firms employing 19 465 in 1997 calculated by
using the same criteria for selection of firms
as the earlier Oxfordshire study (Garnsey and
Lawton Smith, 1998). By mid 2002, there
were some 2000 firms employing c. 50 000
people (Oxfordshire Economic Observatory).
At the same time, there was an expansion in
research in Oxford University in bioscience
funded by research councils, industry and
charitable trusts such as the Wellcome Trust.
The local innovation governance system
appeared spontaneously during the first pe-
riod of government policy discourse. It began
with the formation of The Oxford Trust in
1985 when Dr Martin Wood and his wife
Audrey, who founded Oxford Instruments in
1959, established The Oxford Trust. Since its
formation, in the absence of local policy
 LOCAL INNOVATION ASSEMBLAGES
frameworks, the Trust has taken responsi-
bility for engaging with the high-tech sector
and with research, business and public-sector
organisations, speaking and acting on behalf
of the high-tech sector locally and nationally.
At the outset, the Trust recognised the need
to network to provide innovation support. Its
pioneering activities included managing the
STEP Centre (incubator units) and facilitat-
ing networking through its innovation
Forum, a series of seminars and workshops
bringing together individuals and organisa-
tions on topics relating to business skills,
developments in technology and future mar-
ket opportunities, and running a schools pro-
gramme.
At the time of its formation, it was the
only place that entrepreneurs could go to for
advice. Oxford University was far from be-
ing entrepreneurial; the banks were largely
unhelpful (Lawton Smith, 1990); local
government agencies were lacking in exper-
tise; local politicians were (and still are)
uninterested and local authorities were un-
derresourced and unable to provide specialist
advice. Oxfordshire County Councils low
level of resources allocated to support econ-
omic development per se is a legacy of Con-
servative Party control. In line with national
party policy of minimum state interference in
the economy, the Authoritys philosophy was
to spend as little as possible. As a result, the
County Council is the second-lowest spender
behind Cornwall on everything, including
economic development and the small
Oxfordshire Economic Development (OED)
team. Party politics is also behind the City
Councils lack of engagement with the high-
tech sector and The Oxford Trust. The
Labour Party, which has always controlled
the City Council, has had as its priorities
welfare, the low-wage economy and unem-
ployment (Oxford City Council, 1997),
rather than the high-tech economy.
In this period, Oxford University and the
government laboratories remained outside lo-
cal networks. In the 1980s, Oxford Univer-
sity lagged behind Cambridge in the
formation of institutions designed to support
technology transfer. Until 1989, it had only a
1359
part-time industrial liaison officer; there was
no Isis Innovation, Oxford Universitys tech-
nology transfer company, until 1988, while
the equivalent in Cambridge had been set up
in 1964. There was no science park until
1991 (1970 in Cambridge) because of green-
belt policies rather than a lack of proposals.
The government laboratories were still effec-
tively university-type research organisations,
staffed by risk-averse scientists and engi-
neers (Lawton Smith, 1990).
During the 1990s, in the second phase of
enterprise and innovation discourses, The
Oxford Trusts activities expanded. It moved
to the Oxford Centre for Innovation, an incu-
bator which it owns and manages, in 1994; it
established the Oxfordshire Investment Op-
portunity Network (OION) in 1994 and the
Oxfordshire BiotechNet consortium, a DTI
initiative in 1997; and, through its subsidiary
Oxford Innovation, it provided an increasing
range of commercial activities including in-
terim management, mentoring, advice and
consultancy, services and premises.
At the same time, in response to govern-
mental priorities and the efforts of its key
scientists, important organisational and cul-
tural changes occurred at Oxford University
and in Oxfordshires government laborato-
ries. Oxford University conducted a review
of technology transfer arrangements in
1994. It was highly critical of the univer-
sitys technology transfer policy and prac-
tice, and led to a series of changes, the most
significant of which was the appointment of
Dr Tim Cook to head Isis Innovation in
1997. In 1996, part of the UKAEA was
privatised leading to the formation of AEA
Technology. The sites at Harwell in the Vale
of White Horse and Culham in SODC re-
mained the property of the UKAEA and have
since been developed as a Science Centre
(Culham) and a Technology Park (Harwell).
The local consequences of the national
agenda of valorisation were, first, an increas-
ing level of interest from the government
laboratories in local expertise in facilitating
entrepreneurship and innovation, particularly
with regard to the development of incubators,
and, secondly, the arrival of Dr Tim Cook.
 1360

Table 1.

Date Oxfordshire National developments

1940s Harwell Laboratory (Atomic Energy: fission) 1946

MRC Radiobiology Unit 1947
Hydraulics Research Station 1947 (privatised 1982)
1950s First recorded firm formed by Oxford University academic
Littlemore Instruments, Dr Edward Hall Archaeology Laboratory 1954
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory 1957
Oxford Instruments 1959
1960s Culham Laboratory (nuclear fusion) 1961
Institute of Hydrology 1962
Oxford University and Industry Committee formed 1968
Solid State Logic 1969
1970s National Radiological Protection Board 1970
HELEN LAWTON SMITH

Institute of Virology 1970

Research Machines 1973
First structure plan for Oxfordshire 1976
Oxford Lasers 1977
Joint European Torus 1978
1980s Oxford University Committee on Patents 1980 Ending of BTGs right of first refusal of
The Oxford Trust founded 1985 inventions arising from publicly funded
Oxford University, University and Industrial Committee disbanded research in universities 1983
1986 Education Reform Act: created two new
Modifications to the structure plan to allow science park and funding agencies: Universities Funding Council
location of science-based industries in central Oxfordshire 1987 (UFC) and Polytechnics and Colleges Funding
Isis Innovation formed 1988 Council (PCFC) 1988
Oxford GlycoSystems, 1988 DTI: Department for Enterprise 1988
First full-time university industrial liaison officer appointed 1989 Next Steps initiatives: creation of executive
Oxford Molecular formed 1989 agencies to bring efficiency into government
laboratories 1988
1990s Oxford Science Park established by Magdalen College 1991 Formation of Training and Enterprise Councils
M40 extension opened 16 January 1991 1991
Oxford Polytechnic became Oxford Brookes University 1992 DTI White Paper Realising our Potential 1993
Oxford University Review of Technology Transfer Arrangements Merger of UFC and PCFE to form HEFCE
Report 1995 1993
Oxfordshire Business Link March 1996 New universities created 1992
AEA Technology privatised 1996 DTI White Paper Our Competitive Future 1998
University Statutes asserts rights to intellectual property 1996 Sainsbury Report on Biotechnology Clusters
Oxford Business School established 1996 1999
Tim Cook appointed as CE of Isis Innovation 1997 RDAs established 1999
Oxfordshire BiotechNet established 1997
Oxfordshire Economic Partnership 1998
SEEDA 1999
2000s Oxfordshire Economic Observatory 2001 Training and Enterprise Councils abolished
Oxford University Science Park established 2001 2001
LOCAL INNOVATION ASSEMBLAGES
1361
1362 HELEN LAWTON SMITH

Methodology ence, Shrivenham (RMCS), Head of Per-

sonnel UKAEA.
The paper now examines the development of
(3) Organisations acting on behalf of the
the Oxfordshire governance of innovation
business community: The Oxford Trust,
system focusing on relationships between
the Oxford Chamber of Commerce,
The Oxford Trust and public-sector organisa-
Thames Valley Technology Partnership
tions. To do so, it draws on a study which
The Thames Valley Economic Partner-
investigated the perceptions and conduct of
ship.
individuals in a range of private- and public-
(4) Firms and organisations providing
sector institutions with an interest in promot-
finance and professional services: local
ing the growth of high-tech industry in the
branch of a national bank, local and na-
county. It was undertaken at the beginning of
tional venture capitalists, Wellcome
phase three of governmental discourses
Trust, business angels and property de-
around enterprise and innovation. The re-
velopers, including Oxford Innovation
search was conducted through an interview
and UKAEA Property services manager.
survey using a structured questionnaire of 30
key local actors, interviewed between Sep-
The study asked the individuals about their
tember 1997 and August 1998. The method-
networks, their personal and, where appropri-
ology is similar to that described by Harding
ate, their organisations achievements. By
(2000, p. 59) as a case-study research analy-
1997, when the study reported here was un-
sis strategy for regime analysis. This type of
dertaken, the innovation support system was
analysis does not provide strong evidence of
undergoing considerable transformation.
processes of governance or how they operate,
Comments from interviewees reflect chang-
but it does aid the identification of key play-
ing expectations about which organisations
ers and their innovative discourses which
should be included for the innovation support
they use to promote and resource particular
system to be effective in helping individual
activities. In this case, the sample was
firms and more generally the local economy.
identified from the authors previous studies
The next tasks are, first, to establish that an
of Oxfordshire and by recommendation from
institutional ensemble exists, identifying who
individuals known to be leading players.
is included and excluded; secondly, to ex-
There were two types of interviewee:
plore why and how things get done through
those with a stake in the growth of the high-
collective action (Stoker, 2000); and, thirdly,
tech sector by virtue of the nature of their
to indicate what has been achieved.
job; and those who, through their personal
The interviewees were asked to identify
achievementssuch as academic en-
which organisations/individuals they engage
trepreneursare part of the countys tech-
in discourses with for the purpose of promot-
nology system. The sample comprised four
ing high-tech industry in the county. This
groups
establishes the existence and composition of
(1) Statutory bodies: City, County, Cherwell the ensemble. Those named by each organis-
and Vale of White Horse councils, Heart ation were counted and cross-checked
of England TEC, a secondee from the against the responses from each of the others
DTI Innovation Unit to GOSE. in the sample. If an individual/organisation
(2) Academic/scientific communities: Chair was named by another which was not recip-
of Oxford University Review of Tech- rocally named, that score was added to those
nology Transfer Arrangements Com- of the individual/organisation. Scores are
mittee, Chair of Oxford University shown in Table 2. The table shows that The
Technology Transfer Committee, two Oxford Trust scored highest, with nearly
academic entrepreneurs, Oxford Brookes two-thirds of interviewees (62 per cent) nam-
Technology Transfer Executive Officer, ing or being named by the Trust. Those with
Head of Royal Military College of Sci- the lowest scores and therefore at least partly
 LOCAL INNOVATION ASSEMBLAGES 1363

Table 2.

Organisation Mentions

The Oxford Trust 18

Heart of England TEC 14
ISIS Innovation 14
Oxford County Councils Economic Development Adviser 13
Oxford Science Park 12
Oxford City Development Officer 11
Oxford Brookes 10
Milton Park 10
Oxford Chamber of Commerce 9
Solicitor 8
Oxford Innovation 8
Venture capitalist (local) 8
GOSE 8
TVEP 8
Cherwell District Council 8
National Bank 6
Vale of White Horse 6
Oxford University Research Support Officer 5
Wellcome Trust 5
Academic (bioscience) 4
City councillor (A) 4
Venture capitalist (London) 4
UKAEA Personnel Director 4
UKAEA Property Manager 4
Chair of University Technology Transfer Committee 3
Academic entrepreneur 3
Consultancy company 2
City councillor (B) 1
Chair, Oxford U Technology Transfer Committee 1
Principal, RMCS 0

excluded from these networks were aca-
demics at RMCS and Oxford University, the
UKAEA and the local city councillors. The
number of times mentioned is an indicator of
the scope of association of institutions and
individuals, although not strength of associ-
ation. Further qualification of the existence
of an inner network or strongly associating
elite is the degree to which there is reciprocal
recognition, evidence of co-existing net-
works and mutually exclusive networks, of
the motives for interaction and the ways in
which actors work together. On comparing
reciprocal responses, a core group or an ex-
pert elite of public and private service
providers emerged. This consists of the
Trust, the TEC, the County Council Econ-
omic Development Adviser, Oxford
Brookes, Isis Innovation, a business angel/
property developer, Cherwell District Coun-
cil, a local venture capitalist and a firm of
lawyers (both of whom are involved with
OION), Oxford Innovation, the City Council,
GOSE and the Oxford Science Park. This
suggests that the Trust has important status
amongst the professionals interviewed and
that those involved in the governance system
think it matters.
Several respondents mentioned Oxford
Universitys lack of engagement in local net-
works. Other individuals and organisations
cited as not being sufficiently involved in
setting agendas were local businessmen, the
local further education system and local
government. The City Council, according to
one city councillor, was criticised for being
reactive and not being a place for pro-active
thinking about new ways of linking together
1364 HELEN LAWTON SMITH
the countys top firms, universities, clever
people and money. Another factor which
hinders the development of a broader co-
alition of interests inclusion of some organi-
sations in networks is, according to one
interviewee, but not supported by secondary
evidence, competition between organisa-
tionsfor example, between the TEC, the
College of Further Education and the County
and City Councils.
The Trusts capacity for creating agenda-
setting discourses and getting things done is
derived from its position as an independent
facilitator based on its specialist expertise
and resources. It is the only organisation with
a budget specifically allocated for supporting
start-up and early-stage high-tech firms. The
Trust uses both to mobilise other resources
with experts in partner organisations. The
interviews identified that local and regional
organisations have limited budgets and, in
some cases, remits other than supporting en-
terprise and innovation. For example, the
Government for the South East (GOSE)
Innovation unit has only one member of staff
and two industrial secondees; the Heart of
England TEC had a budget of 12 million
but no budget per se for supporting high-
tech. However, as high-tech companies com-
prised an important component of the
Oxfordshire economy, a proportion of all of
the TECs activity was aimed at supporting
the sector. Unlike the Trust, which focuses
on start-ups, both the TEC and Business
LINK mainly targeted established busi-
nesses. The effect of the need to support
innovation was to encourage networking
with The Oxford Trust.
Further, the argument here is that, as a
consequence of the limited dedicated re-
sources in these organisations and the local
authorities which encouraged networking,
the agency of individuals is more important
than that of the institutions per se. This is
because it is they that shape internal agendas
according to what they see the priorities for
action to be and win support for particular
initiatives. This agency has allowed the Trust
as an expert institution to remain central to
the Oxfordshire system of governance of
innovation. The appointment of Dr Cook as
Chief Executive to Isis Innovation provides
an example of how this works.
Although his prime responsibility is to
commercialise intellectual property from
Oxford University, Dr Cook has become a
key local player. He claims that discussions
particularly with Paul Bradstock and Oxford-
shire County Councils Economic Policy
Adviser help to identify local priorities for
Isis Innovation. That Dr Cook worked for
Oxford Instruments in the 1980s is
significant because he already knew most of
the major players in the county. This exam-
ple reflects the interaction between local and
nationally generated discourses. Moreover,
key local actors such as Sir Martin Wood and
Paul Bradstock are recognised nationally for
their expertise having served on government
committees.2 Thus local is linked to national
agendas and vice versa.
The third task is to illustrate how the
institutional assemblage has stimulated inno-
vation, showing the effects of networking
and bringing resources into play. Not with-
standing the claims of those whose jobs de-
pend on the perception of effective
intervention, there is evidence that en-
trepreneurs and firms have been helped to
innovate through The Oxford Trusts own
initiatives and collaboration in others. Its
own include the provision of a series of
initiatives designed to increase the supply of
specialist property, skilled labour, venture
capital and support for particular sectors.
Contributing to the increased availability
of specialist property has been one of the
Trusts prime achievements. The Oxford
Trust and Oxford Innovation have been in
the van of stimulating the extensive supply of
science parks and incubator centres in the
county. Oxfordshire now has more incuba-
tors than any other UK county. The turning-
point in the history of science park
development in the county was the ACCOSP
report of 1990. This was the report of a
committee comprising a range of local inter-
ests in establishing a science park. Paul
Bradstock, CE of The Oxford Trust, was the
convenor. During the 1980s, there was fierce
 LOCAL INNOVATION ASSEMBLAGES
competition within the county between
Oxford Colleges and developers to establish
a science park to rival that of Cambridge.
This report opened the way for Magdalen
College to build the Oxford Science Park in
1991. Oxford Innovation are recognised as
the local experts in incubator management.
Management of innovation incubators now
accounts for about one-third of its business.
In 2002, the company managed 10, including
Cherwell District Councils Innovation Cen-
tre, the one on The Harwell Business Park,
and Oxford Universitys new incubator, for
which it provided a grant of 70 000.
Raising the local availability of start-up
finance is another area where The Oxford
Trust has been particularly active. It under-
took the co-ordination of the supply of small-
scale venture capital, establishing OION and
engaging with a network of business angels.
OION is a company limited by guarantee. Its
role is to act as a marriage broker bringing
together potential investors and firms seeking
investment. By May 2000, it was estimated
that there were 80 investors in the network,
that 5 million had been invested in 33 deals,
some 50 companies presenting and over 100
new jobs created as a result of OION (Brad-
stock, 2000). Investors range in size from
individuals to national banks, venture capital
companies and local corporate investors. In
conjunction with a local law firm, Manches
and Co, OION provides an intellectual prop-
erty protection pack for start-up companies.
The Trust co-ordinates this network through
the steering group which includes representa-
tives from Business Link, banks and venture
capital companies. Sir Martin Wood is in-
volved in OION and his support lends weight
to the venture. In this example, small-scale
venture capital is delivered by the institution-
alisation of a market place in the form of
OION- and Oxford Trust-based networks.
In the third phase of discourse, central
government priorities of innovation and clus-
ter formation have further connected local
agendas and discourses with national poli-
cies. This is particularly the case in support
for the biotechnology sector. The original
partners in the Oxfordshire BiotechNet,
1365
which was set up by The Oxford Trust in
1997, were GOSE, local sponsors including
Oxford Instruments, the County Council
(10 000), the City Council to a much lesser
extent (500), local branches of national and
international firms for example 3i plc, and
Barclays Bank and the Yamanouchi Re-
search Institute. The initial capital was sup-
plemented by further DTI funding of 20 000
in 1997 and 400 000 in 1999. By September
2000, 22 start-up companies had been cre-
ated, half of which have association with
Oxford and Brookes Universities or with
other universities in the UK and the US. The
majority are located in the incubator centre
established in the grounds of the Ya-
manouchi Research Institute (Baghurst,
2000, personal communication).
The development of a science-orientated,
flexible labour market is fundamental to a
successful knowledge-based economy
(Carnoy et al., 1997). In Oxfordshire, how-
ever, the provision of dedicated training is an
underdeveloped area. The exception is a
high-profile initiative instituted to meet the
needs of the Motorsport sector. This resulted
from collective and separate actions on the
part of The Oxford Trust, Oxford Innovation,
Oxfordshire County Council, Cherwell Dis-
trict Council and the TEC. The Motorsport
Initiative and the degree programme at
Oxford Brookes University initially arose
from an assessment of the strengths of north
Oxfordshire in relation to plans for an inno-
vation centre at the former US airbase at
Upper Heyford. This became the subject of
an EU-funded study, led by Paul Bradstock.
At the same time, Oxfordshires economic
policy adviser had identified that there was a
concentration of performance-car research
testing and manufacturing in Oxfordshire.
The Performance Car Forum was created to
bring together the different actors. A task
force was set up chaired by the then CEO of
the TEC, working in partnership with The
Oxford Trust, which recommended the
degree programme.
If innovation is defined as a technological
process, until recently the Trust has not been
involved in this aspect of innovation. Rather
1366 HELEN LAWTON SMITH
than seeking to improve access to technol-
ogy, historically the Trusts relationships
have been with individual academics who
have sought help and advice in becoming
entrepreneurs rather than with the Univer-
sity. This in part reflects Oxford Univer-
sitys general reluctance to engage in formal
discourses and agenda-setting with local or-
ganisations. That element of an innovation
governance system would require co-
operation between the research institutions.
This was made less likely by privatisation of
part of the UKAEA and the consequent
dramatic scaling-down of R&D.
Recent Developments and Changing
Actors, Discourses and Agendas
Since 1997, new institutional actors have
emerged, while others, notably the Heart of
England TEC, have disappeared. The most
important of the new organisations are the
Oxfordshire Economic Partnership (OEP)
and the South East England Development
Agency (SEEDA). The abolition of the
TECs, which had considerable local auton-
omy, is a step back from localism (Crouch
and Farrell, 2001, p. 204) and removed a
powerful local actor in the Oxfordshire inno-
vation support system.
Oxford Universitys response to the chang-
ing political climate and associated avail-
ability of funding has been to establish a
science park to the north of Oxford, the
expansion of Isis Innovations activities and
the formation of Oxford Entrepreneurs, an
enterprise centre, whose mission is to en-
hance the entrepreneurial culture throughout
the university. Isis Innovation has estab-
lished the Isis Challenge Fund, making 10.7
million available to Oxford spin-offs in their
second round of financing. The University
has also taken a more active stance towards
local economic development. An indication
of this is the creation of the post of Regional
Liaison Director Joe Barclay in October 1999
(now expanded to the Business Liaison Unit
with regional liaison confined to networking).
It is also heavily involved in Venturefest (a
fair for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists).
The fourth Venturefest (June, 2002) was held
at the Science Centre at UKAEA Culham; the
chairman of the steering committee was Dr
Tim Cook, and other members included Joe
Barclay, Paul Bradstock and the Countys
head of Economy and Environment.
In the county, policies in the Districts were
already changing by the late 1990s and, lat-
terly, the high-tech sectors have become even
more important in somefor example, Cher-
well. Located to the north of Oxford, histori-
cally it has been part of the West Midlands
industrial hinterland with manufacturing in-
dustries such as automotive components and
food. The high-tech sector serves as a means
of diversifying the economy away from tra-
ditional sectors, mainly through inward in-
vestment (Economic Development Strategy,
1999/2000, p. 8). Cherwell has worked
closely with Oxford Innovation in this strat-
egy.
In principle, these changes would have
direct implications for the position of The
Oxford Trust but, in practice, while to some
extent it is redefining its role, the localised
rather than regional elements of enterprise
and innovation remainhence the continuing
authority of the Trust. In this new period, the
Trust has continued to support enterprise and
innovation, developing links with the new
actors contributing to agenda-setting dis-
courses, responding to and being empowered
by new government agendas and participat-
ing in most of the major new local initiatives.
For example, Paul Bradstock is on the OEP
Management Committee and in 2001 The
Oxford Trust set up the Biosciences Industry
Group. This Group, chaired by Paul Brad-
stock, for the first time brought scientists and
senior managers from Oxfords two universi-
ties, its hospitals and the Rutherford Apple-
ton laboratory with a view to supporting the
bioscience sector. This initiative demon-
strates the authority of the Trust to engage
with these organisations on the basis of its
track record as expert in supporting bio-
science. The Trust is also involved in the
North Oxfordshire Enterprise Hub, a
SEEDA/Oxford University Faraday Initia-
tive.
 LOCAL INNOVATION ASSEMBLAGES
Conclusions
Innovation has a number of characteristics. It
is a complex process involving technical ad-
vance and organisational change. It is about
the actions of individuals, from pioneering
scientists to marketing people, in conjunction
with others. It is also about raising finance to
fund innovation, having the right kind of
property for innovators to work in, having
the right people for the technical advances,
putting innovations into practice and spotting
the next opportunities. Therefore, this paper
argues, innovation drives the development of
institutional ensembles when the growth in
the number of innovative firms is sufficient
to be recognised as having a special inter-
estto a locality, a region or to a country.
This growth becomes the focus of attention
(agenda-setting discourses are created). On
the other hand, once these institutions are
established or others adapt their activities,
innovation can be stimulated or supported by
institutional capacity. For example, it is now
easier for entrepreneurs to innovate in
Oxfordshire because of all the activity dedi-
cated to high-tech activity.
It is argued that what is missing from the
literatures which deal with the importance of
proximity in the innovation process and
those which raise questions about the nature
of governance and changing roles of the
state, is the recognition that institutions are
not a given. It is argued that they come into
play by individuals acting on their own and
on their organisations behalf. This is in line
with Edquists (1997) distinction between
spontaneous and planned elements of inno-
vation systems. Moreover, organisations/in-
stitutions take their character from their key
personnel. It is this that provides the context
to understanding structure and agency. It is
not to say that institutions are not important,
but that the personalities of individuals will-
ing to engage in agenda-setting discourses
have set in train locally specific endogenous
processes by producing new and important
local discourses around enterprise and inno-
vation. Thus innovation filieres which com-
bine local, regional and national discourses
1367
evolve, producing particular geographies of
technological change.
For example, since the mid 1980s, the
Oxfordshire institutional assemblage sponta-
neously emerged from processes of inno-
vation (broadly defined), focused on The
Oxford Trust. Once established, this has fur-
ther contributed to innovation. The particular
form of institutionalisation owes its character
to the nature of local discourses which grew
around the rapid rise in high-tech en-
trepreneurship in Oxfordshire in the mid
1980s. They developed with changing
governmental agendas of valorisation and
territorialisation of innovation. The Oxford
Trust led, identifying where and how the
high-tech sector needed support. Discourses
have variously changed from bottomup to
topdown and vice versa as what was locally
important combined with the national
agenda, and what became nationally import-
ant reinforced the effectiveness of local inno-
vation systems.
Whether these networks and activities rep-
resent the emergence of effective governance
by The Oxford Trust and is democratic in the
Hirst sense is an interesting question. It is
argued here that it has organised an effective
mode of governance, but to a limited extent.
It is a quasi-state actor. The Trust has a
specific function which only overlaps in cer-
tain respects with other political and econ-
omic agendas. As the high-tech economy has
grown and the government agenda has devel-
oped, The Oxford Trust has been able to get
things done by mobilising resources and fa-
cilitating innovation, more effectively in
some areas than in others. It has taken on the
role of public provider of innovation support
which is in the realm of public affairs
(Stoker, 2000), a governmental responsibility
where supporting innovation is deemed to be
necessary in order to reduce welfare losses
because of problems of market failures.
Moreover, its governance role is enhanced in
four respects. First, by both the engagement
of its founder and chief executive in political
processes through membership of govern-
ment committees and political recognition
of their achievements; secondly, through its
1368 HELEN LAWTON SMITH
activities being co-funded by the state;
thirdly, by working closely with local state
organisations including the county council
and the TEC; and, fourthly, by supporting
state projectsfor example, Oxford Univer-
sitys incubator. Thus, the Trust has been a
key force in spontaneous developments
within and in the absence of policy frame-
works.
Notes
1. Schumpeter later discarded this role, which
Witt (2002) argues was little more than a
psychological characterisation of the excep-
tional personality resembling a kind of elite
theory.
2. Sir Martin Wood was knighted for his ser-
vices to innovation and Paul Bradstock was
awarded an OBE in the Millennium New
Years Honours List in recognition of his
services to innovation and economic devel-
opment in Oxfordshire.
References
ACCOSP (ADVISORY COUNCIL CENTRAL OXFORD-
SHIRE SCIENCE PARKS) (1990) Oxfordshire
Technology Transfer: The Role of Science
Parks. A Report from the Advisory Council
Central Oxfordshire Science Parks. Oxford:
The Oxford Trust.
ACS, Z. (Ed.) (2000) Regional Innovation and
Global Change. London: Pinter.
ALLEN, J. (1997) Economies of power and space,
in: R. LEE and J. WILLS (Eds) Geographies of
Economies, pp. 5970 London: Arnold.
ALLEN, J. (2000) Spatial assemblages of power:
from domination to empowerment, in: D.
MASSEY, J. ALLEN and P. SARRE (Eds) Human
Geography Today, ch. 9. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
AMIN, A. and THRIFT, N. (1995) Globalisation,
institutional thickness and the local economy,
in P. HEALEY, S. CAMERSON, S. DAVOUDI, S.
GRAHAM and A. MADANIPOUR (Eds) Managing
Cities: The New Urban Context, pp. 91108.
Chichester: Wiley.
BRACZYCK, H.-J., COOK, P. and HEIDENREICH, M.
(1998) (Eds) Regional Innovation Systems.
London: UCL Press.
BRADSTOCK, P. (2000) The Oxford Trust: The
First 15 years. Anniversary lecture 12 May.
Oxford: The Oxford Trust.
BULLOCK, A. and STALLYBRASS, O. (1977) The
Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. Lon-
don: Fontana.
CARLSSON, B. (Ed.) (1995) Technological Systems
and Economic Performance: The Case of
Factory Automation. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
CARNOY, M., CASTELLS, M. and BENNER, C.
(1997) Labour market and employment prac-
tices in the age of flexibility: a case study of
Silicon Valley, International Labour Review,
136(1), pp. 2748.
CHARLES, D. and BENNEWORTH, P. (2001) Are we
realizing our potential? Joining up science and
technology policy in the English regions,
Regional Studies, 35(1), pp. 7379.
COOKE, P. and MORGAN, K. (1998) The Associa-
tional Economy. Oxford: OUP.
COX, K. (1998) Locality and community: some
conceptual issues, European Planning Studies,
6(1), pp. 1730.
CROUCH, C. and FARRELL, H. (2001) Great
Britain: falling through the holes in the network
concept, in: C. CROUCH, P. LE GALES, C.
TRIGILIA and H. VOELZKOW (Eds) Local Pro-
duction Systems in Europe: Rise or Demise?,
ch. 6. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DICKEN, P. and MALMBERG, A. (2001) Firms in
territories: a relational perspective, Economic
Geography, 77, pp. 345363.
DOWDING, K. (2001) Explaining urban regimes,
International Journal of Urban and Regional
Research, 25(1), pp. 719.
DTI (DEPARTMENT of TRADE and INDUSTRY)
(1988) DTI: Department for Enterprise. Lon-
don: HMSO.
DTI (DEPARTMENT of TRADE and INDUSTRY)
(1993) Realising our Potential. London:
HMSO.
DTI (DEPARTMENT of TRADE and INDUSTRY)
(1998) Our Competitive Future: Building the
Knowledge Driven Economy. London: HMSO.
EDQUIST, C. (Ed.) (1997) Systems of Innovation:
Technologies, Institutions and Organisations.
London: Francis Pinter.
FELDMAN, M. and FRANCIS, J. (2002) Entre-
preneurs and the formation of industrial clus-
ters. Paper presented at Academy of
International Business Annual Meeting, Puerto
Rico, JuneJuly.
FOUCAULT, M. (1994) General issues in power
and domination, in: J. SCOTT (Ed.) Power:
Critical Concepts, Vol. 1, pp. 218233. Lon-
don: Routledge.
GARNSEY, E. (1998) The genesis of the high tech-
nology milieu: a study in complexity, Inter-
national Journal of Urban and Regional
Research, 22(3), pp. 361377.
GARNSEY, E. and LAWTON SMITH, H. (1998) Prox-
imity and complexity in the emergence of high
technology industry: the Oxbridge comparison,
Geoforum, 29(4), pp. 433450.
GOODWIN, M., JONES, M., JONES, R. ET AL. (2002)
Devolution, economic governance and uneven
 LOCAL INNOVATION ASSEMBLAGES
development: towards a spatial division of the
state. Paper presented at the 98th Annual Meet-
ing of the Association of American Geogra-
phers, Los Angeles, March.
HARDING, A. (2000) Regime formation in
Manchester and Edinburgh, in: G. STOKER (Ed.)
The New Politics of British Local Governance,
pp. 5471. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.
HIRST, P. (1994) Associative Democracy. Oxford:
Polity Press.
HODGSON, G. (1993) Economics and Evolution.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
JESSOP, B. (1990) State Theory: Putting Capitalist
States in their Place. Cambridge: Polity Press.
JONES, M. (1998) Restructuring the local state:
economic governance or social regulation?,
Political Geography, 17 (8), pp. 959989.
KEEBLE, D. (1989) Entrepreneurship, high-
technology industry and regional development
in the United Kingdom: the case of the Cam-
bridge phenomenon, Environment and Plan-
ning C, 7, pp. 153172.
KEEBLE, D., LAWSON, C., MOORE, B. and WILKIN-
SON, F. (1999) Collective learning processes,
networking and institutional thickness in the
Cambridge region, Regional Studies, 33(4),
pp. 319332.
LAWTON SMITH, H. (1990) The location and devel-
opment of advanced technology industry in
Oxfordshire in the context of the research
environment. Unpublished DPhil thesis,
University of Oxford.
LAWTON SMITH, H. (2000) Technology Transfer
and Industrial Change in Europe. Basingstoke:
Macmillan.
LUNDVALL, B.-A. (1992) (Ed.) National Systems
of Innovation: Towards a Theory of Innovation
and Interactive Learning. London: Pinter.
MACLEOD, G. (1999) Reflections on the new re-
gionalism in economic development. Paper pre-
sented at the Regional Studies Association
Conference Regional Potentials in an Integrat-
ing Europe, Bilbao, September.
MASKELL, P. and MALMBERG, A. (1999) The com-
petitiveness of firms and regions ubiquifica-
tion and the importance of localized learning,
European Urban and Regional Studies, 6, pp.
926.
MCKELVEY, M. (1997) Using evolutionary theory
to define systems of innovation, in: C. EDQUIST
(Ed.) Systems of Innovation: Technologies,
1369
Institutions and Organisations, pp. 200222.
London: Francis Pinter.
OINAS, P. and MALECKI, E. J. (2002) The evol-
ution of technologies in time and space: from
national and regional to spatial innovation
systems, International Science Review, 25(1),
pp. 132148.
OXFORD CITY COUNCIL (1997) City of Oxford Local
Plan Review. Oxford: Oxford City Council.
PECK, J. (1995) Moving and shaking: business
elites, state localism and urban privatism, Prog-
ress in Human Geography, 19, pp. 1646.
SAINSBURY REPORT (1999) Biotechnology Clus-
ters; Report of a team led by Lord Sainsbury,
Minister for Science. August. London: HM
Treasury.
SAXENIAN, A. (1988) The Cheshire Cats grin:
innovation and regional development in Eng-
land, Technology Review, February/March,
pp. 6775.
SAXENIAN, A. (1994) Regional Advantage: Cul-
ture and Competition in Silicon Valley and
Route 128. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
SCOTT, A. (1988) New Industrial Spaces. London:
Pion.
SEGAL QUINCE (1985) The Cambridge Phenom-
enon: The Growth of High Technology Industry
in a University Town. Cambridge: Segal
Quince and Partners.
STOKER, G. (2000) Introduction, in: G. STOKER
(Ed.) The New Politics of British Local Gover-
nance, pp. 110. Basingstoke: Macmillan
Press.
STORPER, M. (1995) The resurgence of regional
economies, ten years later: the region as a
nexus of untraded interdependencies, European
Urban and Regional Studies, 2(3), pp. 191
221.
STORPER, M. (1997) The Regional World: Terri-
torial Development in a Global Economy. New
York: Guilford Press.
SWYNGEDOUW, E. (2000) Elite power, global
forces, and the political economy of glocal
development, in: G. CLARK, M. GERTLER and
M. FELDMAN (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of
Economic Geography, ch. 27. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
WITT, U. (2002) How evolutionary is Schum-
peters view of economic development?, Indus-
try and Innovation, 9(1/2), pp. 722.