FOSTERING INNOVATION THROUGH STRENGTHENING INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY IN AN EMERGENT REGIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEM: THE MONTERREY CITY CASE

In this paper the author argues that for emerging regional innovation systems (RIS), institutional capacity (IC) is one ingredient that should be strengthened. The case of the program Monterrey International City of Knowledge (MICK) in northern Mexico, represents an interesting effort from the State government for the city of Monterrey, towards the building of an emergent RIS where specific institutions have been created aimed at transforming this city from a knowledge-based development perspective. The role of government in fostering and encouraging innovation activities might vary from reducing risk, by collaborating strategies, and by using incentives or regulation. Since capacity is seeing as the ability to improve performance, and institutional capacity the ability of the government to improve performance within the system. It will be use the framework suggested by Autio (1998) to study how governmental subsystem can foster innovation through the interaction of agents that create knowledge and agents who use that knowledge to their processes of innovation. This work will focus at the organizational level using the concept of institutional capacity. It is identify key STI organizations for the city of Monterrey and the factors upon which the strength of their IC depends upon.