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Regional Innovation Strategies offers the first comprehensive analysis of the new wave of innovation-oriented regional policies. It draws conclusions from the European Regional Technology Plans and Regional Innovation Strategies, both in old industrialised areas and in regions where development is slow, and compares this with US and Canadian experiences. Anticipating the enlargement of the EU, Regional Innovation Strategies also assesses the growing interest in the subject within policy, academic and practitioner circles in Central and Eastern European countries. This book aims to provide information on the new regional innovation polices and gives the first assessment of this promising pool of regional experiences.
This book examines the roles of communities in the general framework of territorial innovation, particularly in the context of less developed regions. With a specific focus on Portugal, it offers conceptual improvements that will be of use to other European regions. The book will appeal to scholars and students of regional governance and politics, from public administration to economics, sociology, geography and political science, as well as to practitioners.
The book presents a comprehensive and incisive analysis of Structural transformation which is among the most relevant and crucial themes of contemporary economics. Structural transformation is the edifice that is the basis of the next phase of economic transformation. The book demonstrates that structural transformation cannot be shoe horned into a single point formula, it is not merely about achieving a double-digit growth rate, nor it is achieved by an overarching emphasis on rapid technological advancement. Based on empirical evidence pertinent to developed and developing nations and present imperatives the book provides a comprehensive elucidation that structural transformation will be profoundly determined by the empirics of investment, Innovation and Institutions.
This special issue of the journal tries to shed light on how innovation processes occur in less developed regions by examining which factors affect these processes and how they differ substantially between the less developed and the more developed areas in Europe. There are significant differences in innovation capacity among the lagging-peripheral and the more developed regions. Recently, the downgrading of traditional manufacturing and districts-based models in Europe has also highlighted the importance of enhancing relationships between the global and local-regional networks of entrepreneurs and innovators. The transfer of resources alone is not enough to create competitive regional economies in a global world. In this regard, innovation policy may be crucial in designing new paths for development and increasing innovation in peripheral regions. The issue consists of six articles. All of the papers focus on analyzing various aspects of the less developed and peripheral areas within a European context, and look at innovation issues from different research perspectives and methods. In particular, four papers are related to innovation in SMEs and Smart Specialisation Strategy, innovation and the regional allocation of coordination–participation in projects across EU regions, innovation policy and firm absorptive capacities, and innovation linkages with path development in rural areas. One article is based on the relationship between family firms and the propensity to invest in innovation, comparing the more and less developed macro geographical areas. The final paper concerns the nexus between policy planning and the local business ecosystems’ innovative and competitive competence. The first paper by Lukasz Arendt and Wojciech Grabowski focuses on indirectly assessing the impact of innovation policies conducted in Polish NUTS 2 regions within the framework of Regional Innovation Systems and Smart Specialisation Strategy. Interestingly, the authors combine firm-level data with meso data in a multilevel setting and observe that Polish SMEs in less developed regions mostly depend on in-house capabilities, rather than on regional innovative potential, to introduce different types of innovations. Another observation is that Polish SMEs are more likely to innovate if they have an R&D department, a higher quality of labor, realized investments and they use ICT. Finally, regional policies in these less-developed regions should focus more on linking firm-level factors with regional innovation systems, so as to enhance companies’ innovation capacity. The article by Pedro Varela-Vázquez, Manuel González-López and María del Carmen Sánchez-Carreira presents a consistent descriptive analysis concerning the regional allocation of coordination and participation in projects under the 6th and 7th Framework Programmes (FPs), as well as the funds allocated by the ongoing Horizon 2020. By comparing the 6th and 7th FPs, the authors show the existence of a slight reduction in the disparities, in particular, due to the higher participation of regions from Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The results show some interesting insights, as it emerges that developed regions account for most of the participation in projects and funds from the FP instruments. Concerning less developed regions, an uneven geographical distribution of projects and funds leads to the reinforcement of pre-existing industrial and innovation hubs. The third paper is by Marco Pini. The author investigates whether, in less developed regions, family businesses run by outside managers show a higher propensity to innovate (investing in Industry 4.0) than those where the managers are family members. This research focuses on the impact of digital innovation between the less developed Italian regions (Southern) and the more developed regions (the Centre-North). The results show that in Southern Italy, family businesses are more likely to invest in digital technologies when the firm is run by an external manager and spends on R&D. However, in less developed regions, R&D requires new competencies and capabilities. Hence, innovation policies should be based on specific “innovation patterns” defined within individual regions, not only in terms of R&D incentives, but also in encouraging a policy mix approach that is not entirely based on R&D and technology issues. The fourth paper, written by Agnė Paliokaitė, refers to the “regional innovation paradox,” i.e. the low absorption capacity of public funds for innovation shown by less developed region. The author has carried out an analysis of innovation policies applied to central and eastern European countries between 2007 and 2013. She finds that policies hardly promote structural changes as they mainly focus on improving the capacities of mature sectors and on adopting existing technologies. In this sense, the results suggest that a more tailored approach to innovation capacity building is needed, taking into account the current capacity levels within the target groups. The fifth paper, by Merli Reidolf and Martin Graffenberger, analyses the role of local resources for firm innovation and path development in rural areas. Based on the case of Estonia, they find that rural resources (physical, human, immaterial, social and community, and financial) have the potential to extend and upgrade regional development paths, and to enrich existing paths with additional functions. However, merely relying on rural resources to facilitate substantial changes in regional paths does not suffice. Finally, the sixth paper which has been written by Charis Vlados and Dimos Chatzinikolaou analyses the case of business ecosystem policy from a physiological and evolutionary perspective, the so-called “Strategy, Technology and Management” which represents the organic center of the produced innovation, inside a socioeconomic organism. By studying the case of the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace region, one of the less developed regions in Greece, they present an introductory and qualitative field research. The authors outline a new possible direction for policy planning and implementation in order to expand the local business ecosystems’ innovative and competitive competence, especially in the context of a less developed region, by the usage of the ILDI (Institutes of Local Development and Innovation) mechanism. We would sincerely like to thank the authors for their contributions to this special issue. The articles offer us the opportunity to evaluate various facets underneath innovation issues within the context of different peripheral areas. We also thank all the reviewers for their commitment, and for contributing to improving the quality and reliability of the articles. Finally, our special thanks go to the Editor in Chief, Prof. Anna Ujwary-Gil, for her tireless and valuable effort in producing this journal. And, lastly, we hope that all of our readers around the world find these articles an inspiration to conduct more research on these topics in the future.
Working Regions focuses on policy aimed at building sustainable and resilient regional economies in the wake of the global recession. Using examples of four ‘working regions’ — regions where research and design functions and manufacturing still coexist in the same cities — the book argues for a new approach to regional economic development. It does this by highlighting policies that foster innovation and manufacturing in small firms, focus research centers on pushing innovation down the supply chain, and support dynamic, design-driven firm networks. This book traces several key themes underlying the core proposition that for a region to work, it has to link research and manufacturing activities — namely, innovation and production — in the same place. Among the topics discussed in this volume are the issues of how the location of research and development infrastructure produces a clear role of the state in innovation and production systems, and how policy emphasis on pre-production processes in the 1990s has obscured the financialization of intellectual property. Throughout the book, the author draws on examples from diverse industries, including the medical devices industry and the US photonics industry, in order to illustrate the different themes of working regions and the various institutional models operating in various countries and regions.
Rethinking Regional Innovation and Change brings together papers from leading international scholars in the field of regional development and policy. The contributors examine the interactions between path-dependent developments, institutions, and governance structures that influence regional innovation capacity. Up-to-date case studies present diverse theoretical perspectives from economics, political science, geography, planning, and public policy.