Regional Policies, Key Levers of Regional Innovation Dynamics (original) (raw)
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During the last two decades interest in regional innovation policies has progressively increased within the field of regional innovation studies. Such growing interest, which has been mostly European, is observed in the pattern of mentions of the term "regional innovation policy" in scientific papers (González-López et al. 2019). Regional innovation policies studies are narrowly linked to the regional innovation system (RIS) approach (Cooke 1992; Cooke et al. 1997; Asheim and Isaksen 1997; Howells 1999; Asheim and Gertler 2005). The RIS approach, which emerged in the 1990s, linked to both the Innovation Systems (IS) literature and contemporary contributions on Economic Geography and Cluster Theory. The IS approach underlines that nations, regions and sectors show distinctive patterns of innovation, due to diverse technological and institutional trajectories (Lundvall 1992; Edquist 1997). Linked to the post-Schumpeterian views of the Evolutionary School (Nelson and Winter 1982; Dosi and Nelson 1994), innovation and economic changes are understood as a dynamic and path-dependent process, which contributes to explaining why each sector or territory follows different innovation trajectories, shaping different systems of innovation. Moreover, the IS literature draws also on the so-called "interactive learning theories" (Lundvall and Johnson 1994), where innovation is understood as a phenomenon that is the result of multiple interactions and continuous learning processes in which multiple agents participate. At the regional or national level, firms, higher education institutions or technological centres (among others) are the relevant agents that interact and give rise to learning processes and innovations. The other basis for the RIS approach concerns several Economic Geography schools that, particularly since the 1980s, have emphasised the importance of innovation for regions' and territories' competitiveness. Among others, we can include here the New Industrial Districts school
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Measuring innovation activities involves critical decisions in selecting appropriate indicators and levels of observation. The present article contributes to the literature on this subject by addressing innovation measurement on the regional level. The dimensionality of regional innovation is examined by applying a principal component analysis on seven innovation output indicators in European regions from the Community Innovation Survey and two traditional indicators, i.e. patent applications and R&D expenses. The analysis reveals that regional innovation indeed needs to be regarded as a multidimensional concept involving technological, commercial and service innovation. These distinct innovation activities exhibit clear regional patterns with both technological and service innovation concentrated in highly developed territories and urban areas displaying particularly strong innovation performance in services. In addition, commercially successful innovation appears clustered in back...
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: Since the principle that the capacity for innovation is a driving force in the growth of firms or other productive systems has been acknowledged, public policies hold to the view that geographical proximity plays a part in the process of the circulation of technology and knowledge, by fostering the kind of face to face relationships needed to establish and maintain a common pool of knowledge. The aim of this article is to question the relevance of these ideas, and enquiring as to whether geographical proximity is really needed for the diffusion and exchange of knowledge. A body of literature (local systems of production and externalities) considers permanent geographical proximity as a necessary condition for the diffusion of knowledge (I) whereas the articles dealing with transmission channels for externalities, show that geographical proximity only influences the innovative performance of firms if there is effective interaction between the agents (II). We show that organisation ...
regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk
This paper depicts a typology of regions, capturing the diversity of regional innovation systems across the EU-25. Following the Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) literature, our research selects 21 variables related to the ability of a region to generate and absorb knowledge, and its capacity to transform R&D into innovation and economic growth. Based on the results of principal components and cluster analyses, we identify seven types of regional innovation system where the 186 regions group together according to their sectoral specialisation, technological and economic capacity, and performance. For each group a number of policy recommendations are suggested, contingent to their local-specific characteristics. Moreover, the paper allows us to identify similar and more advanced regions so as to facilitate comparisons and benchmarking between homogeneous regions, thus enabling more accurate policy learning. In short the contribution of this paper is twofold. In the first place it provides the first RIS typology for the EU-25 regions completed using a large number of variables. Secondly, the conclusions obtained from the analysis may be used to lead policymakers' actions in the field of regional innovation policy in the EU.
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