STEPHENVILLE — While Rob Greenwood says there is no magic formula in solving problems in regional development, he believes this province can do better than it has been.
That’s why he, as director with the Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development, along with Bojan Furst, are meeting with regional development committees to share what he calls “cutting-edge research” on regional development.
The two were in Stephenville on Wednesday to meet with representatives of the Long Range Regional Economic Development Corporation, along with representatives of some local agencies in the area.
Their research is providing key insights on how municipalities in the province are functioning as integrated regional economies and how their governance tools are adapting to keep up.
“The research ... highlights how rural areas stack up in the knowledge-based economy and what they can do to make the most of opportunities,” he said.
Greenwood said the Harris Centre’s role is one of co-ordination and facilitation and staff are developing their own five-year plan.
While Memorial University once had extension offices in a number of areas throughout the province, there seemed to be a gap in who to turn to once they closed, said Greenwood.
However, he said a number of different agencies helped take up the role the extension offices were doing and today that’s one of the responsibilities of the Harris Centre, which includes providing advise on building the university’s capacity.
A major element of the Harris Centre is to broker connections, using Yaffle.ca, the online project match-making tool, which Greenwood said provides a knowledge mobilization network.
Greenwood said innovation is essential for competitiveness and that knowledge sharing is key for innovation, which can be achieved through clustering and access to external knowledge.
“The challenge to picking apart what is going for us and what’s not working for us,” he said.
The St. John’s Ocean Technology is an example of a cluster that is real, said Greenwood, while the Western Metal Working Network in Corner Brook and the Eastern Supplier Development Alliance is evidence of business networks that have cluster efforts.
