The New North: Patents and Knowledge Economy in Alaska

Alaska\u27s economy has taken a direct hit as world oil prices plunged from a high well above $100 per barrel to very low prices per barrel, the analysts predicting output will continue to dwindle in the years to come. As a result of Alaska\u27s full-blown dependence on oil money, the state now faces a budget deficit. Investment in knowledge –based economy seems to be appealing, and involving the human capacities is necessary. As the Alaska economy continues to recover from the recent financial crisis, the focus is now shifting towards how new sources of economic growth can be fostered that will provide the jobs and prosperity of the coming decade. In the state of Alaska there have been very few studies of knowledge economy and creative economy. The key components of a knowledge economy include a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural resources, combined with efforts to integrate improvements in every stage of the production process. Patents are usually considered as a represented of knowledge economy. We provide evidence drawn from patent data to document an upsurge in knowledge production. We investigate spatial distribution of patents and topological characteristics of innovation activities in Alaska. The primarily results show that Alaska has considerable patent activity, especially in some fields, that there is strong clustering of innovation in major urban areas and in a number of highly specialized communities and that there is a relationship between innovation and economic development in the state

The new North: Patents and knowledge economy analysis in Alaska

In the last few years, Alaska\u27s economy suffered as world oil prices plunged to very low levels, and the analysts predicting that Alaska output will continue to dwindle in the years to come. As a result of Alaska\u27s dependence on oil economy, the state now faces a budget deficit. Modern economic development theories suggest searching for ways to manage northern frontiers. Investment in a knowledge –based economy seems to be new one of the appealing alternatives, and investing the human capacities is necessary. There is enough evidence from both central and peripheral regions that geographic proximity between the people and the organizations that creates knowledge is still at the core of region’s ability to nurture a successful regional innovation system. As the Alaska economy recovers from the recent economic crisis, the focus is now shifting towards how the new sources of economic growth can be fostered in order to provide the jobs and prosperity for the coming decades. In the state of Alaska, there have been very few studies of the knowledge and creative economies. The key features of a knowledge economy include a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural resources, combined with efforts to integrate improvements in every stage of the production process. Patents are usually considered as a representation of the knowledge economy. We provide evidence drawn from patent data to document dynamics in knowledge production. Over thirty-five years (1976-2010) investigation of the spatial distribution of patents and typological characteristics of innovation activities in Alaska had done. The primary results show that Alaska has considerable patent activity, especially in wells industry sector, that there is strong clustering of innovation in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Matanuska Boroughs and that there is a relationship between innovation and employment in the top 25 industry sectors in Alaska. Overall, between 1976 and 2010 AKRIS evolved from a small isolated system dominated by individual (lone-eagle) inventors focused on the innovation in old, low-technology sectors to a relatively diversified (although still over-reliant on the oil sector) intra- and internationally connected system with a considerable presence of company-driven innovation, but yet a strong position of individual inventors, including those from smaller communities. Correlation analysis show that the most significant relationship was observed with population, overall inventor count, and employment in 25 top patent –producing sectors. Further studies need to apply more qualitative and quantitative analysis methods, such as network analysis, to create a full clear image of innovation production over a long-time frame. Including more socio-economic factors that impact innovation activities in Alaska and connecting the dynamics of innovation with other processes in Alaska and global economy would also be important

Arctic’s knowledge economy: spatial patterns of knowledge and technology production in the Arctic

This paper focuses on ‘other,’ i.e. non-resource, non-public sector and non-subsistence economies of the Arctic. We investigate the geography and assets of the Arctic’s knowledge sector by examining both supply and output side of the knowledge production at the circumpolar and regional scales (using Alaska as a case study). In other words, this paper provides a first-cut analysis of the “Arctic variety” of the knowledge economy. We find that the Arctic has variable endowment with human capital engaged in new knowledge generation. Clusters of high knowledge potential tend to locate in larger cities and regional capitals. An analysis of patent registration in Alaska, confirms this pattern, but also reveals a complicated and evolving picture of localized innovation. Alaska demonstrates limited, albeit growing, variety knowledge-producing sectors, a strong role of individual inventors and a weak connectivity with outside knowledge clusters. It is also evident that knowledge production in the Arctic has underdeveloped circumpolar linkages, and thus requires urgent efforts to stimulate research cooperation between private and public sector inventors in the Arctic jurisdictions