High technology locations and globalisation: converse paths, common processes

Abstract

Today's economy can be characterised as simultaneously globalised and localised. In this paper, we examine the emergence and evolution of two high tech centres that exemplify these interwoven processes. Cambridge in East Anglia and Sophia-Antipolis near Nice are among the best known centres of high technology activity in Europe. They are often classed together, but the response to global developments and the dynamics underlying the emergence and working of each of these high tech clusters are in direct contrast, despite the operation of certain common processes. This paper shows that Cambridge has grown up largely as a centre of technologies emerging from the science base through local enterprise, but has also come to be a centre of early diffusing technologies. Sophia-Antipolis has grown as centre of implant activity and technological diffusion and is becoming a centre of enterprise and emerging technologies.