National roundtable examining industrial innovation policymaking conducted by the Babbage Forum in Seoul, Korea

Professor Sir Mike Gregory and members of the Babbage Forum travelled to Seoul to conduct the first in a series of national roundtables with senior policymakers to further explore national approaches to industrial innovation policymaking, key challenges and effective practices.

Building upon this year’s Babbage Symposium, Head of the Babbage Forum, Professor Gregory, was joined by former heads of the Ministry of SMEs and Start Ups, Ministry of Economy and Finance Trade, Ministry of Industry and Energy as well as the President’s former Chief of Staff for Policy to gain a personal perspective of policymaking practices and challenges in the Korean government.

Exploring the Babbage prioritized themes of industrial capabilities, policymaking competencies, efficient innovation ecosystems and evaluation & legacy learning, the former ministers and leading academics provided a rich discussion and critical insights for the ongoing Babbage endeavor.

Over the next six months the Babbage Forum will be conducting similar meetings in all nine nations represented by Forum members to develop a directly comparable international view of Industrial innovation policy making approaches, challenges and need.

Professor Gregory said: “The Babbage Forum is committed to supporting more effective and robust industrial innovation policymaking. By bringing together expertise from the disciplines of engineering and operations management with economics, Babbage convenes leading academic figures and senior practitioners. Combining a multidisciplinary approach with a comparison of international practice, Babbage is developing unique insights into the state of the art in industrial innovation poliymaking in leading economies.”

Professor Gregory added “We are very grateful to our hosts in Korea and the participants of our first roundtable focused upon a specific nation. It is increasingly clear that, though the themes we are prioritizing are not new, the opportunity to conduct an international examination with senior individuals who have direct experience not only confirms those themes as areas of most potential impact but also to identify approaches and practices that will be of real benefit to policymakers.”

Further roundtables are planned for 2023 in Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, China, Singapore and the UK and US.

Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy (CIIP) brings together the Centre for Science, Technology & Innovation Policy at the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), the Policy Links Unit from IfM Engage, and the Babbage Policy Forum.

More information about the Babbage Forum can be found here.