Innovation systems in Mexico: A matter of missing synergies

摘要

Innovative economies generate new options from geographical, technological, and organizational synergies. These synergies can be indicated as subsystems of negative entropy. Such a reduction of uncertainty favours the climate for innovation.Using information theory and triple helix model of university-industry-government relations, we analyse the Mexican innovation system at national and regional levels in terms of the mutual information flowing between the geographical, technological, and organizational subsystems, through measures of synergy.Our results show that most synergies are produced at the national level. Although one can consider Mexico as a national innovation system, no specific strengths are found at this level that may be indicative of a well-functioning system. At the sub-national level, a few regions show particular strengths in medium- and low-tech manufacturing industries and in knowledge-intensive services. Therefore, Mexico has a long-term potential for implementing more holistic science, technology and innovation policies to spur innovation at the sub-national level.