The challenge of devising public policy for high-tech, science-based, and knowledge-based communities: evidence from a life science and biotechnology community

This paper raises the problematic of devising evidence-based public policy for high-tech, knowledge-based communities which are critical to national innovation and competitiveness. By applying an established framework of policy analysis to a specific life-science and biotechnology community, and by conducting an inclusive, systemic, and grounded analysis of the community, past and present policy support for the community are critically assessed and future avenues examined. Although community-level policy can, at times, be generic, an attitude embracing differentiation and contingency that reflects the specificities of community and subcommunity (population) organising may be more appropriate.