What industrial organization for the creation of a technology dynamic around ITER ? An economics of innovation approach

The present report is the conclusion to a study conducted by IMRI from February 2003 to July 2004 for the Controlled Fusion Research Department of the Materials Science Division of the CEA, Cadarache, called "What industrial organization for the creation of a technology dynamic around ITER in the European space? An economics of innovation approach". The report itself is designed to cover all the research carried out by IMRI during the study period, and to answer the initial research questions. The aim of the study was to identify the organizational modes best suited to the development of a technological and industrial dynamic around the ITER project. This meant explaining, in industrial policy terms, how the geographic area in which this "technology core" is established can maximize the externalities produced by a facility of the scale and nature of ITER, and generate a local cluster dynamic. The notion of a cluster is very interesting from the point of view of the analysis of innovation phenomena, in that it accounts for the systematic nature of such an activity. At the request of the steering committee, this study sought, more specifically, to identify the leverage that elected councillors and local actors can activate to stimulate the emergence of a technological and industrial dynamic around ITER.