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Cooke and Morgan (1993) put forward their five requirements for a successful technopole, taking a slightly different focus of approach to that of Smilor. They identify their key elements of a networked region. Their five requirements were as follows:

• public and private industrial support institutions

• high grade labour market intelligence and vocational training • the rapid diffusion of technology transfer

• a high degree of interfirm networking • receptive firms disposed towards innovation

The first key element identifies the support institutions which should interact consistently with the firms within the county. In the case of Hertfordshire the major

institutions have tried to take a proactive role, with schemes such as the Partnership for Prosperity which has already been described. The TEC was rated well in the

survey of firms. There is, however, the danger that the County Council is trying to accomplish more than is logistically possible in its position The intention to become involved in promoting and aiding firms to successfully apply to the European funding programmes is one such issue. There is the danger of over-complicating the county’s resources, duplicating efforts and confusing firms as to who is the best point of contact for specific problems. Some of the County Council’s efforts are perhaps inhibiting the success of the one-stop shop. Business Link. The Chamber of Commerce also has a key role to play with regard to its export expertise, considering the number of multinationals and the nature of the high-technology dominated economic base of the county.

The problem lies more with the government attitude towards research and development and the relative public support institutions. The paper by Jeremy Howells (1994) is particularly enlightening. Compounded by the Tory attitude to privatisation, the British government cut its support for research and development

during the last decade and a half. Government expenditure on research and

development fell by 17.9% in real terms between 1985 and 1991 (from £4965 million to £4075 million; Cabinet Office 1993, taken from Howells 1994, p.4). At the same time spending in other countries was on the increase. The following table shows the UK growth in total research and development expenditure compared with major competitors in the period 1985-1991;

UK 11.9 146.9 6.6 2.27 2.08 *

Germany 2Z1 179.7 103 2.72 2 58

France 16.0 183.9 10.6 2.25 2.42

Japan 42.9 208 2 13.0 :L58 2 86

USA 98.0 154.1 7.5 2.93 2.78

GERD (Gross Expenditure on R & D), PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) (Op cit, p. 6) Table 4.9 UK Growth in R & D Expenditure and its Competitors

As you can see from the table, UK expenditure is significantly below that of the other countries. The growth index is also well below that of the others. Notice the figures of both France and Germany, the two countries in which successful examples of technopoles and networking have been illustrated. The most interesting figure is in the last column, spending as a percentage of GDP. The UK comes almost half a percent below the poorest of the other four.

This fall in expenditure is predicted to fall even further, by another 4.3% between 1992 and 1996. Government research agencies have suffered to the extent that much research is now contracted out whilst external sources of funding have increased. The Warren Spring Laboratory, mentioned earlier, is now going to merge with AEA Technology thus moving out of the county of Hertfordshire.

It is this non-commitment to research and development that could be a major barrier to Hertfordshire becoming a UK technopole in the same genre as Cité Scientifique and Baden-Württemburg. Both of these latter examples exhibit considerable state support in all elements identified by Cooke and Morgan.

The second key element concerns the quality of the labour pool within the county, and the opportunities for the labour force to switch between different sectors of the county’s economy. In respect to the pharmaceutical sector this key element has proved to be a particular problem. Hart (1993, p. 63) has identified the concerns expressed by the industry:

“A t a seminar involving the pharmaceutical firms, the county council and the TEC, a senior manager in Glaxo Group Research’s Human Resources Department, stated that the staffing o f their new research campus at Stevenage could be problematic. In particular there was a problem with finding people with good A ’ Levels and post doctoral qualifications in chemistry. He fe lt that this was because in the past Stevenage schools had been more concerned with engineering than with science to provide recruits fo r British Aerospace. ”

As Hart continues, it is not sufficient for the county to have a highly qualified labour pool, but as Cooke and Morgan show, it is the vocational training that is needed. However, the county has most definitely suffered simply because it was good at the vocational training of its up and coming workforce. Years of preparing young people for the defence industry has led to a shortage of skills for the other significant sectors within the county. The county has been defeated by its own success and complacency based on defence. Hart calls it the “pinnacle problem” - the more skilled workers are, the further up the occupational ladder they go - the less likely it is that they can simply move from one branch of high-technology to another;

‘‘In many wc^s the problem isn't one o f training in a narrow sense - it is one o f education in a wider sense and the concomitant ability to learn new

skills. ” (Op. cit, p.65)

The important part of the element, therefore, is the nature of the vocational training. Too much, or too narrow an approach can be more destructive than constructive. This problem of over-specialisation in the high-technology sector can be illustrated by the following graph (HMSG 1990, p. 22), (figure 4.12):