ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the two-fold re-localization of the global political economy of science and innovation – the almost automatic re-imagination of regions as future innovation hubs on the one hand, and the re-imagination of innovation around the practices of a few select places on the other. Best practice models of innovation, the bread and butter of innovation policy after the "practice turn", are plentiful. First, the MIT model is an institutional best practice model. A second, arguably even more prominent best practice is the Silicon Valley model. A third and relatively recent best-practice model of innovation is that of Responsible Innovation. The chapter focuses on brief case, United Kingdom, Portugal and Singapore, which reveal how three innovation initiatives in three countries envisioned fundamentally different things – different challenges, different solutions, different organizational models – when trying to foster innovation with the help of the same model – the "MIT model".
