WWWforEurope Lecture Series: Remaking Manufacturing in the USA and Europe

As US companies shift the commercialisation of their technologies abroad, there is a danger that their capacity for initiating future rounds of innovation will be progressively enfeebled. Much learning takes place as companies move their ideas beyond prototypes and demonstration and through the stages of commercialisation. Learning takes place as engineers and technicians on the factory floor come back with their problems to the design engineers and struggle with them to find better resolutions; learning takes place as users come back with problems. And in the challenges of large-scale production, even of humble products, companies find a terrain for innovation that allows them to reap higher profits. – In order to reinvigorate economic growth in Europe and especially in the Southern periphery it is not enough to focus on restoring price competitiveness. The current consolidation strategy has important blind spots as far as industrial restructuring, upgrading tourism, making use of globalisation and alternative energies, supporting business starts, connecting education, as well as innovation and firm creation are concerned.