The Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) is dedicated to the understanding and practice of the nexus of innovation and entrepreneurship in the leading regions around the world. Current research focuses on Silicon Valley and high technology regions across Asia, including in China, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. SPRIE fulfills its mission through interdisciplinary and international collaborative research, seminars and conferences, publications and briefings for industry and government leaders. 

SPRIE research focuses on the nexus of innovation and entrepreneurship in high technology clusters, through questions such as:

• What factors enable innovative and entrepreneurial regions to advance and be sustained? What divergent models and strategies are evident in emerging regions?
• Why have some regions lagged, despite strong assets such as skilled workers or capital investments? What obstacles hinder a region's development?
• How can the performance of high-technology regions be analyzed and evaluated?
• How do the flows of ideas, technology, people, and capital define new global linkages? How do these shape the emerging global high-technology system?
• With the rise of China, India, and other high-technology powerhouses, what new patterns of interaction are emerging among major players? How can companies and governments best respond to new critical challenges and opportunities?
• What are the implications for the United States, and especially Silicon Valley?

Emerging global high-technology system

During the latter half of the 20th century, Silicon Valley was widely acknowledged as the preeminent example of a high-technology region. It had combined unrivaled leadership in successive generations of information technologies with the creation of new firms, which have grown into global leaders.

Yet the Valley is not a singular success, nor can any region in this era of globalization be sustained in isolation. New firms and technological advances are expanding in regions across Asia. These new centers of high-technology dynamism are linked through flows of people, capital, and technology that define the emerging global high-technology system.

Bringing together business, academia and government

SPRIE brings together a team of distinguished faculty, researchers, visiting scholars, and students from business, political science, economics, and technology. SPRIE also conducts research through international, interdisciplinary collaboration with scholars at other eminent research institutes and universities, and partnerships with leading international/high-technology firms. SPRIE sponsors seminars, workshops, and conferences in the United States and Asia for scholars as well as leaders in government and business. SPRIE research results are disseminated through briefings, reports, case studies, articles, and books.

Interdisciplinary and International Research

The following are current areas of SPRIE investigation.

Understanding Innovation Patterns

Rapid increases in Asia’s innovative capacity and competence—most notably in China and global India—are fundamentally changing the patterns of innovation. The scale and scope of these new powerhouses portend even more significant impacts in the years ahead. From research and development (R&D) to manufacturing to marketing, key activities are migrating to—as well as within—Asia. Motivations reach beyond the well-known lures of lower costs: the quest is for higher value added productivity, growth markets, and pools of talent. SPRIE research is examining the roles that Asian firms and institutions are taking in an era of the globalization of R&D, and identifying the most significant regions and technologies of rising R&D competency. Current work investigates emerging strategies, best practices, and models for innovation in these regions, and considers the implications for other players in the global high-technology system, such as the United States.

Profiling New International Leaders

From an unprecedented number of startups to a new class of billion-dollar giants going global, high-technology companies in China, India, and elsewhere are demonstrating their clout. A new generation of firms and their leaders aim to leverage lower costs while increasing value-added activities. As these firms seek to continue a trajectory of dramatic growth, build competitive advantage, climb the value-added ladder, and leverage their roles vis-à-vis growing global markets and resources, the critical challenges for high-technology leadership will only intensify. Focusing first on China, SPRIE is studying metrics to describe, analyze, and evaluate the performance of effective and successful high-technology business leaders. There are important questions about how the rising generation of leaders is being developed, and whether those leaders can take Chinese firms global. Who belongs in this elite cadre? Do they share similar attributes or best practices? How are they leading their companies to face the critical challenges and opportunities of the dynamic business environment?