Regional integration | EPFL Graph Search

Regional Integration is a process in which neighboring countries enter into an agreement in order to upgrade cooperation through common institutions and rules. The objectives of the agreement could range from economic to political to environmental, although it has typically taken the form of a political economy initiative where commercial interests are the focus for achieving broader socio-political and security objectives, as defined by national governments. Regional integration has been organized either via supranational institutional structures or through intergovernmental decision-making, or a combination of both. Past efforts at regional integration have often focused on removing barriers to free trade in the region, increasing the free movement of people, labour, goods, and capital across national borders, reducing the possibility of regional armed conflict (for example, through Confidence and Security-Building Measures), and adopting cohesive regional stances on policy issues, such as the environment, climate change and migration. Intra-regional trade refers to trade which focuses on economic exchange primarily between countries of the same region or economic zone. In recent years countries within economic-trade regimes such as ASEAN in Southeast Asia for example have increased the level of trade and commodity exchange between themselves which reduces the inflation and tariff barriers associated with foreign markets resulting in growing prosperity. Regional integration has been defined as the process through which independent national states "voluntarily mingle, merge and mix with their neighbours so as to lose the factual attributes of sovereignty while acquiring new techniques for resolving conflicts among themselves." De Lombaerde and Van Langenhove describe it as a worldwide phenomenon of territorial systems that increases the interactions between their components and creates new forms of organization, co-existing with traditional forms of state-led organization at the national level.

Innovation dynamics in the medical device sector

Monica Coffano

This thesis aims to provide new insights into the evolution of the medical device sector (MedTech). After the analysis of the history of the sector, I examine the key points that in the past 60 years, have led the industry to grow so impressively, and I proceed to an analysis of the actual situation. The scope of the thesis is to understand if what has stimulated the success of the sector at the beginning is still important, and if the introduction of new elements has positively changed the evolution of the sector. The thesis is composed of three works. The first work (chapter 2) is developed in collaboration with Dominique Foray and Michele Pezzoni. I analyze how the network structure of inventors in the Swiss regions can influence regional innovation performance. I aim to contribute to the existing literature related to the debate on the importance of inventors' collocation for the creation of innovation. I claim that an increased degree centrality of MedTech inventors in the regional technological community is positively associated with the number of MedTech patent applications in the focal region. Moreover, the presence of MedTech inventors in the principal component of the regional technological community is positively associated with the number of MedTech patent applications in the region. However, local connections are not enough to promote innovation. In fact, the results show that intense cross-regional linkages of MedTech inventors increase the number of MedTech patent applications in the region. Thus, it is not only important that an inventor be well connected within her region, but also that she be exposed to external knowledge in order to increase her possibility of achieving high performance in MedTech within that region. Finally, I want also to understand how MedTech is open to other technological domains. I find that the average degree centrality and cross-regional linkages of academic inventors and inventors specialized in technologies complementary to MedTech affect regional innovation outcomes. The second work (chapter 3) is developed in collaboration with Dominique Foray. I aim to study the impact of external technologies on the MedTech sector. I start analyzing the literature of knowledge spillovers, and I do a comprehensive review of the extant measures of knowledge spillovers. I argue that the classical measures based on patent backward citations should be carefully interpreted. The reason as to why this type of index needs a prudent interpretation is linked to the characteristics of different technologies in terms of the speed at which other sectors are capable of understanding, absorbing and using them. Therefore, I propose a new formulation of the classical measure of backward citations. The third work (chapter 4) is developed in collaboration with Fabiana Visentin. I aim to understand the effects of the MedTech regulation that entered into force in Europe in 1993. I argue that the regulation has two effects. The first effect is related to the level of radicalness in the innovation. I claim that after the introduction of the regulation, and consequently with the tightening of the requirements to fulfill, firms became more careful and less motivated to propose radical innovations. At the same time, standardization of the requirements over the European countries gives to firms the possibility of widening their market.

EPFL2016

Process Integration Analysis of an Industrial Hydrogen Production Process

François Maréchal, Laurence Tock, Christian Metzger

The energy efficiency of an industrial hydrogen production process using steam methane reforming (SMR) combined with the water gas shift reaction (WGS) is analyzed using process integration techniques based on heat cascade calculation and pinch analysis with the aim of identifying potential measures to enhance the process performance. The challenge is to satisfy the high temperature heat demand of the SMR reaction by minimizing the consumption of natural gas to feed the combustion and to exploit at maximum the heat excess at low temperature by producing valuable steam or electricity or by performing cogeneration. By applying a systematic methodology based on energy-flow models, process integration techniques and a multi-objective optimization procedure, the process performances defined by the specific natural gas consumption and the specific steam or electricity production is optimized and analyzed for different operating conditions (i.e. air preheating, pre-reforming/reforming, WGS temperature) and process modification options like pre-reformer integration. Identified measures are to increase the production of exportable steam by consuming the entire waste heat and optimizing the steam production pressure level, and to reduce the natural gas consumption by adjusting process parameters. By these measures the performance can be varied between 0.53-0.59 kmol natural gas/kmol H2 for the specific total natural gas consumption and 1.8-3.7 kmol steam/kmol H2 for the specific steam production.

2010

Innovation dynamics in the medical device sector

Monica Coffano

EPFL2016