Innovation Policies and Locational Competitiveness : Lessons from Singapore

The relationship between innovation policies and locational competitiveness has emerged as an important area in the analysis of economic development, reflecting both the centralisation and decentralisation of globalising economic activities. The underlying spatial and institutional components are subject to a pattern of cumulative causation in which strategic interventions of policy actors exercise a decisive role in shaping competitive advantages, while promoting interactions with local and foreign partners both from the private and public sectors. The Singaporean development experience illustrated these strategic interdependencies of innovation policies and locational competitiveness. Based on her role as a manufacturing and service hub, Singapore is viewed as an infrastructural nodal point which is interconnected to global production networks. Paralleling efforts in the domain of technological innovation, Singapore's policies for locational competitiveness aim at an adaptive harmonisation of the needs of international investors with local developmental objectives. This orientation characterises also current efforts in promoting Singapore as a knowledge agglomeration with a distinct science base, expanding R&D operations and an innovation-driven pattern of economic development. In conclusion, the locational rationale of Singapore's innovation policies provides lessons for dealing with the spatial and institutional implications of technological globalisation.