Postal address: Box 117, SE-221 00 Lund
Visiting address: Sölvegatan 16 (LUCIE building)
Web page: http://www.circle.lu.se/
Contact person: Professor Cristina Chaminade, phone: +46 (0)46 2229893.
Personal web page.
CIRCLE is a Swedish Centre of Excellence in the field of innovation research, funded by the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, VINNOVA.
It is a multidiscplinary research centre spawning several faculties at Lund University (the Dept. of Social and Economic Geography, the Dept. of Business Administration; the Dept. of Economic History; and the Research Policy Institute) and Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) (the Centre for Territorial Development Planning in Karlskrona).
The research at CIRCLE focuses on four main research areas: • Learning in systems of innovation and the effects of R&D and innovation on growth; • Studies of regional innovation systems; • The entrepreneurial university and research-based ventures; and • Public policies in the field of innovation.
Since 2007, CIRCLE also runs a Masters Programme in Society, Science and Technology. It covers two years of full-time study, and is integrated into a network of 16 European universities, which collaborate in delivering the programme. More information.
Research connected to South Asia
CIRCLE has a large interest in research on Asia, especially China and India. In October 2006 CIRCLE’s then Director, Professor Charles Edquist (photo), participated in the Globelics 2006 conference, held in Thiruvananthapuram, India. During the conference Prof. Edquist and other colleagues from CIRCLE presented papers dealing with India, for example Prof. Christina Chaminade and Associate Professor Jan Vang Lauridsen, Copenhagen Institute of Technology (now at Aalborg University), who presented a paper titled ”Building RIS in Developing Countries: Policy Lessons from Bangalore, India” (a paper also presented at the workshop ”The Rapid Industrialization of China and India: Domestic and International Consequences”, held at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, 31 March – 1 April 2006).
In her research, Cristina Chaminade focuses mainly on understanding how firms, regions and nations create and use knowledge for innovation when knowledge is globally distributed, and how policies can be designed to support innovation in a global context. Currently she coordinates several projects on globalization of innovation with partners in Europe, China, India, South Africa and Brazil funded by the Swedish Research Council, the European Union (FP7) or the Rijksbanken and Volkswagen Foundation.
On 10 October 2006 the Swedish Research Council decided to give SEK 2.7 Million as a three-years grant (2007-09) to a CIRCLE research project entitled “Emerging Trends in Asia: from cost-based producers to global suppliers of innovation. Implications for industry growth in developed and developing countries“. The researchers involved in the project team are Asheim, besides Dr. Vang and Prof. Chaminade also Professor Björn T. Asheim from the Dept. of Social and Economic Geography, Lund University, and Dr. Lars Coenen. Professor Asheim was a co-founder of CIRCLE in 2004, and is now the Deputy Director. More information about the Swedish Research Council project grant.
On Thursday 12 April 2007, CIRCLE arranged a workshop on ”Globalization of Innovation: A Deeper Look into India and China” at Lund University. The workshop was organised in collaboration with the Nordic Institute for Asian Studies in Copenhagen, and brought together well-known scholars working on India and China to present, discuss and compare the scope and depth of the move from cost-competition to more knowledge intensive activities in a selection of sectors in China and India. Professor Rakesh Basant (photo to the right) from the Indian Institute of Management (IIT) in Ahmedabad, talked about Indian Software Industry (with Cristina Chaminade as discussant). Prof. Basant also talked about the Indian autoparts and automotive industry (Jan Vang being discussant). Associate Professor Mark Lorenzen from the Dept. of Industrial Economics and Strategy (IVS) at Copenhagen Business School talked about the Indian film Industry (Björn Asheim being discussant). More information (as a Word document).
On Tuesday 20 April 2010, CIRCLE organised a seminar presenting a paper by Professor Cristina Chaminade and then PhD candidate Monica Plechero, on ”Different competences, different modes in the globalization of innovation? A comparative study of the Pune and Beijing regions”. The paper was based on their data on innovation and internationalization strategies of Chinese and Indian firms, collected in Pune, India and Beijing, China during 2008-2009. The study specifically explores the role of the region as well as firm-characteristics in the form that firms internationalize. Three forms of globalization of innovation are considered: the global sourcing of technology, the international research collaboration and the global exploitation of technology. The comparative data on the two regions shows that the Pune region is more specialized in all the three forms, and particularly regarding the exploitation of innovation.
On 11 December 2012, Monica Plechero defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”The Changing Geography of Innovation – Chinese and Indian Regions and the Global Flows of Innovation”. She was also registered at the Department of Human Geography, Lund University. The thesis deals with how Chinese and Indian firms are upgrading their innovation capabilities to go internationally, and how regional and global linkages are effecting firms’ capacity to compete in the global market. Faculty opponent was Associate Professor Andrea Morrison, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Read the full-text thesis.
Her main research topic concerns global innovation networks and different forms of globalization of innovation in developing countries. She is particularly interested in studying firms located in emerging Regional Innovation Systems.
In these last years she has been involved in several projects on globalization of innovation with partners in Europe, China, India, South Africa and Brazil. Read an article entitled ”Indiska och kinesiska företag i innovationsfronten” at Lund University web site.