Importance of science and technology parks in developing economies grows

Management and technology consultancy BearingPoint publishes “Smart Cities” research, launched at G8 summit

Frankfurt, June 18, 2013 – In the context of the G8 summit on June 17 and 18 in Northern Ireland, management and technology consultancy BearingPoint presented a research into the importance of ‘smart cities’ as the catalyst for development in emerging markets.

With emerging markets playing an increasingly important role on the international stage, one of the innovative ways they are creating even more influence is by developing technology centers or science parks. The research, drawing on BearingPoint’s long experience in Europe, Africa and Middle East, examines their growing significance in developing emerging economies. At the turn of the 21st century the richer emerging markets (North Africa, Persian Gulf, South East Asia) began the trend of setting up technology centers. In Africa, for example, Egypt, Morocco and even Tunisia have opened the way for them. These pioneers have seen their initiatives create several thousand new jobs, resulting at the same time in an increasing role of information and communications technology in these countries’ economies. Moreover, since 2010 Africa’s connection to the fiber optic network has seen this really take off, with sub-Saharan Africa establishing their own technology parks.

The way to master the art of “technopolisation”

However, emerging economies still have some way to go to master the art of “technopolisation”. According to BearingPoint’s research five criteria are key to the successful installation of this type of structure:

• Complete involvement of key actors;
• Establishment of a common vision based on the country’s strategic objectives;
• Establishment of an ad hoc financing model;
• Set up of an effective operational model and an efficient governance model;
• Attractiveness of science parks to international partners.

Commenting on the paper Jean-Michel Huet, Director at BearingPoint and responsible for the research, said: “The findings show that this initiative is really taking off in emerging economies. There, where science parks are premium development tools, competition between emerging markets grows. Infrastructure specific to each country is created and each nation attempts to make its science parks stand out from the competition by owning a specialism where value-added is high. Some countries take it even further and become country-enterprises, building a packaged offer of science park deployment by selling their know-how to other economies. For example, the Tunisian technology center of EL Ghazala carried out a technical, economic, commercial and environmental feasibility study for setting up a science park in Madagascar.”

An abstract of the research is also being published in the G8 Climate Change Magazine: G8 "Climate change – The New Economy"

About BearingPoint

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