Reaching Across the Pond: Extending a Regional Innovation Ecosystem Strategy

The Georgia Institute of Technology has been a catalyst for economic growth in the Southeast United States since its founding in 1885. Over the past 30 years, it has become known as one of the top technological universities in the world. As part of a strategic planning effort in mid2009, it sought to strengthen its thought leadership and impact through the implementation of a global innovation ecosystem strategy. The Institute serves as the integrating focus within its region to promote disruptive thought, use-inspired research, experimentation, and accelerated implementation through novel educational, research, and industry partnership programmes. Since 2009, there has been a marked increase in economic development impact. This paper describes an implementation of a system-focused strategy for a regional innovation ecosystem in the Southeast United States, a research methodology for its continuous improvement and assessment with results and analysis over a multi-year period, and lessons learned. It postulates necessary ecologic, economic, and societal attributes for an innovation ecosystem, illustrates how these attributes are the basis for success within the region, and describes how this is a basis for extension to its affiliated programmes in France.