The germ of an idea: foreign (Scottish) business incubation in Boston

Early last week, a delegation from Scotland hosted a private luncheon in a downtown hotel for a small group of Boston-area academics, scientists, and technologists. Although an official announcement has yet to be made, the Scottish delegation was an advance team to start the process of moving the US headquarters of their economic development agency to Boston.

By D.C. Denison Boston Globe

For the Scots, the move here from Stamford, Conn., is part of an aggressive strategy to ”drive the Scottish economy up the value chain,” said Iain Gray, Scotland’s minister for enterprise, transport, and lifelong learning. But the announcement is also significant for Boston, as yet another indication the city is gaining as a location for state-sponsored international research and development.

Already Boston hosts a number of government-supported business incubators. Both Northern Ireland (Invest Northern Ireland) and the Irish Republic (Enterprise Ireland) have offices here. The Dutch (The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency), the French (Invest in France Agency-North America), and the Welsh (Welsh Development Agency) also have operations in Boston. So does Korea (iParkBoston) and Great Britain (InvestUK).

Scotland’s luncheon was not open to the press, but many of those who attended report that the Scots are intending to push the incubator concept further than many of their predecessors.

”This is really a change for a country like Scotland,” said Barry Unger, associate professor of innovation and technology at Boston University and the chairman of its Science and Engineering Program at the Division of Extended Education.

”Twenty years ago, the Scots were focused primarily on attracting light manufacturing. But now they are really reinventing themselves,” said Unger, who attended the lunch.

One of the forces pushing Scotland toward reinvention is the relentless pursuit of low wages by global corporations, which is moving light manufacturing jobs to Eastern Europe and the Pacific Rim. This is a game that Scotland can’t win, and doesn’t want to win.

So the new model, built around centers like the one in Boston, is based on the Scots’ reputation for research. (Remember Dolly, the first animal cloned from an adult animal? That happened at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh.) The Scots want to get better at focusing their research and quickly bringing it to market.

”Today, for Scotland, it’s much more about understanding the process of commercializing research, and acting on that,” said Unger.

And the benefit to Boston? According to Unger, it’s ”keeping the area educational institutions relevant.”

”For Boston University, programs like the Scottish one do not generate a lot of money in terms of tuition or grants,” Unger said. ”But we try to be a very `applied’ sort of place, and having these kinds of programs in Boston makes that happen.”

Specifically, the Boston office of Scottish Development International will concentrate on projects in biotechnology, microelectronics, energy, and financial services. It will be part of a larger Scottish strategy of launching Intermediary Technology Institutes (ITIs) focused on three sectors: energy, life sciences, and technology. These institutes are designed to increase innovation within these sectors and lead to more commercialization of various early-stage concepts within Scotland.

The significance for local academic institutions and corporations is that these ITIs plan to purchase research from academic resources, including Boston-based universities. Then, after assessing market needs, the Scots would commission research from their universities and others, including Boston academic institutions, to develop technologies designed to meet those needs.

For BU’s Unger, the Scottish program, and the other foreign offices in Boston, speak to ”the evolving nature of foreign economic development.”

”Twenty-five years ago, it was `How do we get big companies to locate in our country?”’ Unger said. ”Now it’s much more sophisticated, involving tighter relationships with the American economy, and American technology, and with what you might call managerial technology: finance, marketing, and distribution.

”It’s fortunate that Boston is a good place to make that happen,” Unger said.

D.C. Denison can be reached at [email protected].

This story ran on page H2 of the Boston Globe on 11/24/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

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