CSTI Seminars & Events
Upcoming Events
Past Events
Babbage Forum Meeting: The Global Industrial Innovation Policymaking Meeting 2025 (16 September 2025)
Hosted by The Babbage Forum at Madingley Hall & Gardens, Cambridge
Over 15 countries were represented by senior policymakers and leading academics, who explored the big questions shaping industrial innovation policy: 1. Geopolitics, security & sovereignty, 2. Supply chains & global markets; and 3. Industrial & technological capabilities.
Keynotes from global experts have set the international context, with roundtable discussions running through the day to identify priorities for industrial innovation policy in 2026 and beyond.
Joint Lecture: Regional Innovation Systems: Comparative insights on the UK and China by Simon Collinson, Zhejiang University, China (17 July 2025)
Organised by the Policy Evidence Unit for University Commercialisation and Innovation (UCI) and CSTI/Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy at the Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge
In this lecture, Simon Collinson, the Tsingshan Chair Professor in the School of Management, Zhejiang University (SOM, ZJU) and an Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham, reviewed China’s systems of innovation (national and regional) and related institutions, governance structures and policies. He explored how differences in the role of government and universities, particularly at the provincial and city-region levels, influence the development of innovation capabilities in firms, industry sectors and local clusters. He made some direct comparisons between the UK’s approach to innovation policy and market intervention mechanisms, and those in China. This seminar stimulated an open discussion about gaps in the empirical evidence and in the current comparative international research on China’s system of innovation.
Workshop: Innovation intermediaries for capability building and regional industrial policy (3 & 4 October 2024)
Convened by CSTI at the Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge
Leading experts in regional industrial and innovation policy and innovation intermediaries came together for a workshop at the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge. This workshop aimed to share research questions and gaps in the current fields of research and to bring forward the conversation on regional industrial policy, with a focus on the role that innovation intermediaries can play in coordinating and fostering regions’ structural transformation and upgrade. The two primary objectives were: (1) promoting a discussion about innovation intermediaries and regional industrial policy, considering different experiences across countries (e.g., France, UK, Japan, US, Singapore, Switzerland); and (2) connecting a community from different disciplines (e.g., innovation economics, operation management, regional economics, public policy, economic geography), while identifying interdisciplinary research questions across academic and policy topics of common interest.
The workshop report can be accessed here.
