We present a rather theoretical framework for analyzing patterns of Science,
Technology, Higher Education (STE)-Innovation coevolution in industrializing
economies, which could eventually fit into a broader model of
innovation-led, and structural change-based economic growth. The framework
supports the view that such and other co-evolutionary process are linked to
the Emergence of Higher Level Organizations (HLOs) like new sectors,
markets, clusters, etc., which are the substance of Structural Change. This
because new HLOs generally require new Invention/Innovation and these
require STE outputs, particularly Science and Engineering Graduates. The
starting point is a formal model of Œendogenous¹ STE-push of Innovation and
Innovation-pull of STE in which critical masses, capacity variables and
changes in governance leading to Increasing Returns might directly spark a
co-evolutionary process, albeit a limited one. The key for a more
sustainable process in the early phases of industrialization would then lie
in additional factors, such as enhanced learning concerning push and pull,
and ŒExogenous¹, largely policy-led, factors such as creation of new
Universities, sending students abroad and creation of a network of Public
Technological Institutes (to employ and train returning students/graduates
from abroad while the demand from the business sector is weak). This early
STE-thrust focus of Innovation Policy (broadly defined) would help create
critical masses of both populations (directly of STE, and through
co-evolution, also of Innovation), hence generating the necessary conditions
for virtuous co-evolutionary processes of STE and Innovation. Still,
sustainability of such a process and of overall economic growth would
require a subsequent relative shift in policy towards an Innovation-thrust
focus, involving both direct support of commercial innovation and systemic
support through the creation of a Venture Capital industry and/or market.
The model was used to analyze aspects of the evolutionary history of the
Israeli and Mexican National Innovation Systems in terms of patterns of
emergence and co-evolution (or lack of them) among key variables associated
with innovation and structural change-led economic development. The paper
also outlines an overall Œmodel¹ that tentatively integrates these
experiences. Both help to sharpen some of the Schumpeterian developing
challenges facing these countries.