How do universities in China and Singapore experiment with new types of learning in their quest to promote innovation and entrepreneurship? Is there a need to transform the traditional university into an “entrepreneurial university”? “What are the recent developments in and outstanding challenges to financing innovation in China and Japan? And what is the government’s role in promoting innovative entrepreneurship (as opposed to small- and medium-size enterprises) under the shadow of big business in South Korea?

These are some of the questions discussed at the second annual conference of APARC’s Stanford Asia-Pacific Innovation research project. The two-day conference, co-hosted jointly with Tsinghua University and titled “Analyzing Public Policies for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in East Asia,” was held on September 9-10, 2018 at the Beijing-based D&C Think Tank. It brought together scholars from the United States and Asia to explore education policies and financial policies conducive to accelerating innovation and developing a more entrepreneurial workforce in East Asia. Participants focused on entrepreneurship education in universities and on policy interventions to promote innovation financing. The conference papers will be published in an edited volume that will serve as a valuable reference for scholars and policymakers working to develop human capital for innovation in Asia.

The Stanford Asia-Pacific Innovation project is a multi-year, Center-wide effort to produce academic and policy research from comparative, regional perspectives into how Asian nations are responding to the imperative to develop the skills, competencies, long-term health, and systems that make up a platform for innovation in the twenty-first century.

The project’s lead researchers—Karen Eggleston, Takeo Hoshi, Yong Suk Lee, and Gi-Wook Shin—are preparing for publication the findings from the project’s first annual conference that was held at Stanford last year and focused on the organization of business and innovation clusters in East Asia. In 2019, the project will turn to examining the intersection of aging, technology, and innovation, with a third conference to be held in South Korea next summer.

Following are several photos that capture scenes from the conference (with Karen Eggleston and Gi-Wook Shin; Takeo Hoshi; Dinsha Mistree and Yong Suk Lee; and several other conference participants).