فصلنامه مطالعات راهبردی سیاستگذاری عمومی
پیاپی 45 (زمستان 1401)

Free economic zones are diverse actors of the national innovation system and need more interaction to maintain economic performance. These are more critical in developing countries that need to both absorb knowledge and technology and influence the market and support domestic players. Playing such a role requires a theoretical understanding of these areas and explaining their appropriate functions in the innovation system. To this purpose, the study employed the knowledge based-economics and innovation system's functions in the explanatory-abductive approach based on the data extracted from semi-structured interviews (12 experts) and attempts to illustrate the functions of free economic zones. The results indicate that free zones can act as an environment for innovation labs and policy labs, transferring knowledge and technology, developing innovation clusters, facilitating innovation for companies outside the innovation system, networking and international cooperation, and absorption of venture capital investment.Keywords: Knowledge-based economy, Free economic zones, Innovation System

Securing intellectual property rights is an incentive and stimulus for invention and innovation, in such a way that it allows firms and inventors to get the most benefit from their invention during the protection period of patent rights and encourages them to innovate. But the lack of a commercial view of patenting, along with the functional shortcomings of this system in Iran, causes the main functions of the industrial property system to face a challenge for the development of the knowledge-based economy. The focus of this article is the pathology of the challenges in the field of patent registration and litigation and providing policy requirements for the promotion of the industrial property protection system in Iran. To answer this question, based on the qualitative research plan, interview guidelines have been compiled based on the background of the research and review of reports and international research, and after conducting semi-structured interviews, data content analysis has been done. In the policy requirements presented in this article, the main policy elements to strengthen industrial property protection systems in the form of registration and evaluation, proceedings and legal systems are presented. Also, policies for the development of support systems including education and promotion, scientific publications, commercialization and contracts, international communication and treaties, as well as valuation and pricing have been designed and proposed.

Some attributes of the agricultural sector in Iran are low Value-added, low amount of Total Factor Productivity, and a traditional structure, which facing these facts requires supporting agriculture through knowledge and technology. Therefore, the qualitative research was conducted to propose the policy tools for the transition to knowledge-intensive agriculture in Iran by identifying policy gaps and system failures in this field. In order to achieve the research goals, a literature review, a comparative study, and a focus group were used. The results of the comparative studies of the policy experiences of knowledge-intensive agriculture development in Iran, India, Turkey, and Switzerland led to the typology of the related policy tools in these countries. These results formed the input of the focus group meeting. The data from the focus group meeting was analyzed through thematic content analysis into the framework of system failures which led to the extraction of 51 challenges of knowledge-intensive agricultural development in Iran and 20 policy tools for the transition to knowledge-intensive agriculture.

The Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology has managed innovation agencies in Iran for two decades. It is now time to assess their deficiencies and obstacles in light of the experience of other countries in regards to innovation agencies and science, technology, and innovation councils. This qualitative study employed a literature analysis and semi-structured interviews with researchers, present and previous management of these agencies, and Iranian innovation funds. According to the findings, the responsibilities and efficacy of Iranian innovation agencies are not transparent, and they face a number of challenges, including resource limitation and scattering, unstructured mechanisms for resource mobilization, inappropriate and late prioritization of technologies, and a lack of clarity regarding responsibility boundaries with respect to other science and technology institutions. To address these issues, the paper suggests analysis, formation, and elimination of innovation agencies through the formation of an agile structure and upstream organization, providing proposals for innovation ecosystem development by the agencies, establishing multilateral agreements between each agency, the relevant ministry, and the Plan and Budget Organization, and introducing a typology for innovation agencies.

One of the primary goals of a knowledge-based economy over the last century has been to eradicate poverty. Because of the importance of the discussion of innovation for deprivation, global foundations support innovative entrepreneurial activities to affect change in lower-income people. Since 2019, the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation has demonstrated a shift toward a knowledge-based economy through the implementation of empowerment policies in economic activities. This study aims to analyze the pathology of the relief committee's current policies concerning the development of knowledge-based activities in the target society, and then offer policies for the creation of new, innovative jobs and solutions in the underprivileged sector of society. This study used a descriptive-analytical approach. An open-ended semi-structured interview has been used to collect information. The managers and relief committees from various Iranian provinces were included in the statistical population. The study's findings point to 15 major organizational problems. Economic and structural obstacles make up the two main categories of these challenges. In general, evidence reveals that the most significant challenges for the development of innovative jobs are lack of relevant strategies, administrative bureaucracy, lack of a regular talent search and talent assessment process, lack of delivering needs-aligned training, and lack of a strategy and program for product marketing, lack of generating ideas, insufficient financing, and lack of bank guarantees required to secure facilities.

The university is not only one of the main and well-known components of most innovation ecosystems, but sometimes it is the core of the formation and development of an ecosystem. Identifying the factors affecting the formation and growth of a university-based innovation ecosystem is the main goal of this study. This qualitative study identifies the factors influencing the formation of university-based innovation ecosystems in developed countries by comparing them with a sample of these ecosystems in Iran as a developing country (Innovation Ecosystem of Sharif Industry). The specific challenges of this ecosystem and the alternative solutions used in it are identified and the formation pattern of this innovation ecosystem is explained. Data analysis of this study is theme analysis, and a network of factors affecting the formation of these ecosystems is formed. Based on the results of this research, the factors are classified into 4 main categories, including the type of collaborations, the way of institutionalization, activities, and characteristics of actors.

The history of formulating policies and development plans and laws has reached several decades. According to some experts, they have experienced severe inflation at the start of the new century. Over time, due to the non-implementation of the goals of these policies and the sense of necessity to follow them, decision and policy makers have proposed new laws with the same policy themes in the new words and have tried to take a step towards implementation. . For example, in the field of science and technology, there are different versions with similar themes about elite management, technology commercialization and the use of internal power. However, the degree of success in implementation has always been a challenge for activists in this field. In this article, based on the author's experience in responsibility related to the development of innovation policies in the last six years, which has been done using the action research method, a model for effectiveness in implementing these policies is presented. In this regard, three important policies in which the researcher has been directly involved have been selected for study. According to the researcher, the inflation of policies and laws in the country and the repetition of the goals of each in the form of new labels, will not lead to the implementation of the policy. Rather, according to the proposed approach of this study,