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Innovation and the Skill Mix: Chemicals and Engineering in Britain and Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Geoff Mason  and
Karin Wagner
Geoff Mason
Affiliation:
National Institute of Economic and Social Research
Karin Wagner
Affiliation:
Social Science Research Centre, Berlin
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Extract

In recent years continued disparities between countries in economic performance combined with the rapid pace of technological change have led to growing interest in comparisons of ‘national systems of innovation’. The development of this concept reflects increased awareness of both the cumulative, informal nature of much innovative activity—especially the interaction between producers and prospective users of new products—and the ways in which national-institutional structures condition the decisions taken by key actors in the innovative process such as enterprises, universities, and individual engineers, scientists and other members of the labour force (Lundvall, 1988; Freeman, 1988; Westney, 1993; Soskice, 1993).

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 148 , May 1994 , pp. 61 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

∗

This note draws on work published in National Institute Report no. 6, High-level Skills and Industrial Competitiveness: Post-graduate Engineers and Scientists in Britain and Germany, 1994. We are glad to acknowledge financial support for this enquiry which was provided by the Science and Engineering Research Council together with the Economic and Social Research Council; however, they are not responsible in anyway for the views expressed in this note.

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