Venture capital district : from Silicon valley and Route 128 to Waterloo region technology

This article presents a case-study of close links between universities, firms and government agencies ranging from joint research centres to contract research funded by industry or consultancies. The role of innovation and diffusion of new technologies as engines of growth is empirically well established from firm and industry level studies.This paper has three aims. First, it draws a comparison between Silicon Valley and Route 128 and the Region of Waterloo, underlying the theme of intellectual property rights. Second, it focuses on the linkage between Venture Capital and Canadian universities in the Waterloo Region. Third, it discusses some successful examples at the University of Waterloo. We demonstrate that innovation is strongly dependent on exchange/integration of knowledge originating from all the relevant players within a country: firms, scientific communities, the financial community, and government.