Centre for Technology Management

Complex Processes and Innovative Places;   The Evolution of High Tech Cambridge and Sophia-Antipolis

Garnsey, E. and Longhi, C.

Centre for Technology Management, Institute for Manufacturing, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, UK

Abstract

Today's economy can be characterized as simultaneously globalized and localised. In this paper we examine the emergence and evolution of two high tech centres that exemplify these interwoven processes. Cambridge in East Anglia and Sophia-Antipolis near Nice are among the best known centres of high technology activity in Europe. They are often classed together, but the response to global developments and the dynamics underlying the emergence and working of each of these high tech clusters are in direct contrast, despite the operation of certain common processes. This paper shows that Cambridge has grown up largely as a centre of technologies emerging from the science base through local enterprise, but has also come to be centre of early diffusing technologies. Sophia-Antipolis has grown as centre of implant activity and technological diffusion and is becoming a centre of enterprise and emerging technologies.