Which mode of governance for the innovation cities of Moroccan public universities?

Abstract

The project to create innovation cities is part of the national innovation strategy developed since 2009, and of Law No. 01.00 on the organization of higher education which allowed to adopt judicious programs relating to the valorization of research and innovation within the universities. Therefore, to promote the valorization of research and to make society benefit from its results, various initiatives have been initiated. These initiatives gave birth to the Innovation Cities project. This project was designed around the axes of governance, regulatory framework, infrastructure, financing, support, and talent mobilization. Nevertheless, despite the results obtained, in terms of innovation and valorization of scientific research and also in terms of development of the entrepreneurial culture, difficulties hinder the management and governance of these complex ecosystems. As a result, the expected objectives could not be reached. The problematic posed is to question the difficulties encountered which are more related to the lack of adequate governance mode for this kind of structures allowing them to be able to release energies and promote innovation. In which, we will, in the first step, identify the difficulties due to the lack of efficient governance, and in the second step, show the different possible scenarios, proposed within the framework of the European Erasmus+ INSITES project “Institutionalization of Innovation and Knowledge Transfer Structures,” in view of the requirement of the missions of the cities of innovation and of the regulation in force, to implement an enlightened, transparent and quality governance.