Robinson College, Cambridge, 29-30 March 2006. Sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

The Centre for Business Research at the University of Cambridge has made a major contribution to evidence-based policy over the last decade, through a range of ESRC-funded work on two themes. This conference, opened by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, showcased this work.

Our research on Innovation includes the large-scale surveys that regularly take the pulse of Britain's smaller businesses, and have pioneered the benchmarking of UK and US innovation activities, and studies of the impact of insolvency law on entrepreneurship. Our work on Governance includes research into stakeholder-versus-shareholder models of capitalism, and responses to corporate misbehaviour.

This Summit featured both invited international guest speakers, and past and present members of the CBR, to build on the core findings of this work. It reflected on the achievements arising from the Centre's interdisciplinary work over the past decade, and invited participants to help set an agenda for future research in innovation and governance. And it concluded with a panel discussion focusing on the challenges of developing evidence-based policy for the future. To see copies of the presentations, please click on the titles of the talks listed below.

Day 1: March 29: Innovation and Enterprise

8.30 Registration and Coffee

9.00 Welcome Professor Alison Richard, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and Alan Hughes, Director of the Centre for Business Research

9.25 Richard Lester: 'Universities, innovation, and the competitiveness of local and national economies'

10.05 Michael Kitson and Ron Martin: 'Unequal Competitive Performance across the UK regions'

10.45 Tea/Coffee

11.10 Hugh Whittaker: 'Entrepreneurs and business development in Japan and Britain'

11.50 John Armour and Doug Cumming: 'Bankruptcy law and entrepreneurship'

12.30 Lunch

14.00 Bronwyn Hall: 'Innovation and productivity in UK and US firms'

14.40 Stan Metcalfe and Bruce Tether: 'Innovation in services'

15.20 Tea/Coffee

15.50 Bob Bennett: 'Government SME policy support since the 1990s: What have we learnt?'

16.30 David Storey, Andy Cosh and Alan Hughes: 'SME ‘happiness’ under the Tories and Labour'

17.10 Final discussions

17.30 Close

Day 2: March 30: Governance

9.00 Charlie Conn, Andy Cosh, Paul Guest and Alan Hughes: 'Governance and Performance: The Case of Takeovers'

9.30 Dennis Mueller, 'Corporate governance and the returns on investment'

10.00 Brian Cheffins: 'Dividends and Politics'

10.30 Tea/Coffee

11.00 Christel Lane and Jocelyn Probert: 'The External Sourcing of Technological Knowledge by US pharmaceutical companies'

11.30 Stephen Pratten: 'Networks and governance in broadcasting'

12.00 William Brown, Adrian Cadbury, Simon Deakin and Paul Davies: Round-table on evidence-based policy:

13.00 Lunch