Amid the complex challenges of a rapidly changing and increasingly interconnected world, policymakers and civil society in Europe, Asia, and North America are wrestling with how to promote competitiveness and innovation domestically. Worldwide, these actors must reckon with the speed at which technologies are advancing, the increasing influence of big tech companies over social and political life, the need to bolster domestic competitiveness in response to global trade fragmentation, and the risk that these trends will increase inequality. Can innovation, prosperity, and good governance reinforce one another, and what lessons and best practices can Europe, Asia, and North America offer to make their societies more resilient while continuing to foster innovation?
These questions are at the core of CAPRI and CAPRI USA’s trilateral conference, Global Innovation Reimagined. As globalization gives way to regional fragmentation, we bring together perspectives and solutions from Asia, Europe, and North America. We view innovation as encompassing not only the advancement of new technologies but also the application of creative thinking, inventive problem-solving, and the exchange of ideas across fields, sectors, and cultural contexts. To this end, the Global Innovation Reimagined trilateral conference is building a community of experts interested in developing solutions that allow innovation to prosper and promote inclusivity, social consensus-building, good governance, and societal resilience.
The trilateral was inaugurated in July 2025 in partnership with the Copenhagen Business School’s Rethinking Entrepreneurship initiative and the University of Virginia’s Project on Democracy and Capitalism. Under the theme “Reimagining Entrepreneurship and Innovation for the 21st Century,” this inaugural conference convened 50 leaders from business, government, academia, and civil society in Copenhagen for three days of discussion on new strategies to address diverse innovation challenges through the lens of entrepreneurship.
Drawing on those conference discussions, each memo in this volume showcases a different participant’s perspective on innovation, entrepreneurship, and global challenges. Across themes of entrepreneurialism in democratic societies, industrial policy, AI governance, women-led entrepreneurship, and community entrepreneurship, several common questions surfaced:
In a world dominated by big tech firms, to what extent can countries regulate foreign technologies while spurring innovation and start-up activity within their own borders? Amid growing techno-nationalism, can regulatory frameworks across countries be harmonized to promote cross-border innovation?
How can policymakers, educators, and investors promote inclusive models of entrepreneurship, and can these models spur innovation?
Can entrepreneurial activity enhance democratic governance, and can stronger democratic governance in turn foster innovation?
The authors of this volume reflect on these questions from different perspectives, starting with how entrepreneurial principles—and the capitalist systems that enable entrepreneurs to pursue success—can enhance or erode democratic values. Examining how the philosophy of entrepreneurialism permeates diverse aspects of public life, Christina Lubinski of the Copenhagen Business School outlines several approaches to promote innovation in alignment with democratic norms. Similarly, CAPRI board member and economist Alicia García Herrero discusses the social contracts that shape entrepreneurial opportunity and risk in Europe, the US, and Asia—particularly China—identifying how cooperative models of entrepreneurship can enable more inclusive, equitable innovation.
The next set of memos address trends in national strategy-setting, namely the recent revival of industrial policy to accelerate innovation and increase competitiveness. Joseph Wong, a leading political economist and senior fellow at CAPRI, applies his research on the East Asian model of industrial policy to highlight the limits of what contemporary uses of such policy can achieve and the potential risks to the global order when industrial policy is used maliciously. Meanwhile, CAPRI senior fellow Mara Rudman, who has advised on national security policy for the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations, draws on examples from US history to demonstrate how like-minded partnerships can shape effective industrial policy for global competitiveness.
In the global race for technological supremacy, sufficient regulatory oversight and AI governance are increasingly crucial to promote innovation in safe AI technologies and the equitable distribution of their benefits. Nevertheless, approaches to AI governance vary widely among countries. CAPRI senior fellow Yu-Che Chen, president of the Digital Government Society and director of the Digital Governance and Analytics lab at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, outlines both the forces shaping AI governance and innovative approaches that can strengthen the public value of AI. CAPRI director of engagement Siwei Huang discusses the policy challenges facing Asia-Pacific middle powers as the US, EU, and China forge different AI governance frameworks. Additionally, Nikolaj Munch Andersen, Chief AI Advisor to Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, discusses how Europe can balance the innovative potential of AI systems with promoting safety and equity.
Within the realm of high-tech innovation, women entrepreneurs continue to face opportunity and financing inequities. In response, Maija Renko of Aalto University in Finland proposes more inclusive methods of analyzing and measuring entrepreneurial success. As for East and Southeast Asia, CAPRI’s founder and chair Syaru Shirley Lin and I survey the success stories of women-founded ventures as well as landscape of persistent societal challenges facing women entrepreneurs, especially in securing financing.
The volume concludes by returning to discussions on the value and purposes of entrepreneurship from the community to the global level. Sarah Jack of the Lancaster University Management School argues that contexts, institutions, and communities create the social value of entrepreneurship. Stan Shih, CAPRI board member and co-founder and honorary chairman of Acer, discusses his philosophy of “New Wangdao,” or the “new leader’s way,” which has encouraged co-creation and innovation among all stakeholders in Acer and its affiliated businesses. CAPRI senior fellow Audrey Chia of the National University of Singapore explores innovation and community from the perspective of social entrepreneurs. Nic Lauten describes how initiatives like Kula Project, which promotes entrepreneurial activity among smallholder farmers, can reframe entrepreneurship into a means of building community prosperity in the least developed parts of the world. Finally, Stephen Cummings of the University of Sydney challenges conventional entrepreneurial values and archetypes through an indigenous lens, highlighting examples from Māori culture.
Throughout this volume, the hyper-competitive, venture-capital–backed style of Silicon-Valley innovation takes a backseat to the many other bottom-up pathways entrepreneurs take to foster innovation in their communities and societies. At the same time, top-down strategies and national policy frameworks shape the environments in which individuals can cultivate innovative solutions to common challenges. These perspectives highlight that both bottom-up and top-down activity contribute to innovation. Moreover, the authors ask us to reconsider the goals of entrepreneurship and innovation policy, the archetypal participants in startup ecosystems, and the social value associated with entrepreneurial traits. This volume embodies the long-term goal of the annual Global Innovation Reimagined conference, which is to create a diverse community of leading thinkers who can develop new ideas on the challenges facing societies across Asia, Europe, and North America.
The 2025 conference was made possible through CAPRI and CAPRI USA’s partnership with the University of Virginia’s Democracy and Capitalism Lab (formerly the Project on Democracy and Capitalism) and Rethinking Entrepreneurship in Society at the Copenhagen Business School, especially Profs. Scott C. Miller and Hannah Knox Tucker. I also thank the members of CAPRI and CAPRI USA’s boards and the Research and Program Committee, namely Mimi Riley, Chang-Chuan Chan, Alicia García Herrero, Harry Harding, and Stan Shih, for advising CAPRI’s research and joining us in Copenhagen, either in person or in spirit. Finally, I thank the CAPRI team for their work to organize the conference and the publication of this volume.
