Dr. Jim Randall, prófessor við Háskólann á Prince Edward eyju í Kanada, flytur hádegisfyrirlestur í boði Viðskiptafræðideildar. Fyrirlesturinn verður á ensku. Allir velkomnir.
High-Tech Entrepreneurship on a low-tech Island: The biosciences and BioVectra Ltd. on Prince Edward Island, Canada
The literature on small islands suggests that entrepreneurship is conditioned by a jurisdiction’s political, economic and geographic context, with the presence of visionary leaders, educational institutions and governments, scale, peripherality and export-orientation being important developmental factors.
The research presented here uses a case study approach to better understand the high-technology biosciences sector on Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada, a largely resource-dependent island province. It focuses on the birth and growth of BioVectra Limited, a key firm in this sector. It concludes that many of the factors associated with the growth of biosciences clusters elsewhere in the world, including an existing research infrastructure, readily-available investment capital, and local supply linkages, do not exist on PEI. Rather, the role of key entrepreneurs and accessibility to decision-makers at key points were more important in the success of the firm and the sector.
About Jim Randall
Dr. Jim Randall is UNESCO Co-Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability, Professor of Island Studies at UPEI, and is Co-ordinator of the Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) program and the undergraduate Island Studies minor. His background training is as an economic and social geographer. He has been the Principal Investigator, Co-investigator, or Collaborator on peer-reviewed grant and contract applications totalling almost $5 million (CAD) and has written more than 35 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the area of quality-of-life indicators, economic and urban geography, and community-university research collaboration. Since joining the Island Studies program at UPEI, he has written on quality-of-life issues in small island jurisdictions, the state of rural PEI and biotechnology-based entrepreneurship on Prince Edward Island.