A Deconcentrated Technology Policy—Lessons from the Sophia-Antipolis Experience

In the present period of drastic technological changes, the best way of increasing the innovative capacity of an economy is no longer to accumulate resources in strategic fields nor to increase incentives to private firms and other actors, but to develop networks of creative interrelations between them. This depends more on collective processes than on traditional public decisions. In that perspective, local synergies and properly organised capacities of territorial structures are of great potential. In this paper it is proposed that the conception of technology policy be revised along such lines. Careful analyses of far-reaching experiences like Sophia-Antipolis bring about creative insights and help to build effective technology policies. In the first part of the paper the history of Sophia-Antipolis is analysed in the perspective of technology policy. In the second part we draw lessons regarding two issues: The territorial basis of technology policy, and the new forms of ‘public’ action.