Regions And Innovation Policies In Europe

Offering a novel contribution within the growing field of regional innovation policies, this book combines recent theoretical developments and empirical contributions, with a particular focus on non-core regions. Leading academics in the field discuss the topics of regional path transformation, place-based strategies and policy learning. Also included are sections on the role of EU institutions on the promotion of regional innovation and the analysis and comparison of the innovation policies experiences of four non-core European regions.

Driven by European Union policy challenges, this cutting-edge book focuses upon the Regional Innovation Impact (RII) of universities, to analyse the socioeconomic impact that universities in Europe have on their hometowns, metropolitan areas and regions.

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 investigates the EU’s regional growth dynamics and, in particular, the reasons why peripheral and socio-economically disadvantaged areas have persistently failed to catch up with the rest of the Union. It shows that the capability of the knowledge-based growth model to deliver its expected benefits to these areas crucially depends on tackling a specific set of socio-institutional factors which prevents innovation from being effectively translated into economic growth. The book takes an eclectic approach to the territorial genesis of innovation and regional growth by combining different theoretical strands into one model of empirical analysis covering the whole EU-25. An in-depth comparative analysis with the United States is also included, providing significant insights into the distinctive features of the European process of innovation and its territorial determinants. The evidence produced in the book is extensively applied to the analysis of EU development policies.

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.

"This book provides the first full analysis of smart specialisation strategies both at theoretical and practical levels. As a new policy approach smart specialisation has already been widely adopted in Europe and beyond. Smart Specialisation: Opportunities and Challenges for Regional Innovation Policy analyses the concept of smart specialisation, discusses the need for smart specialisation strategies, explains how the approach varies from standard policy processes and explores the necessary conditions for successful implementation. This book has been written at a critical period of the implementation of smart specialisation strategies across Europe. As the EU has adopted smart specialisation as a mandatory principle for every region and member state this book will be useful to policy makers in regional and national administrations in Europe, policy makers in other parts of the world, consultants, analysts and experts active on the "markets for smart specialisation diagnosis and expertise" as well as scholars, researchers and graduate students working in the field of regional studies, technology policy and geography of innovation"--

All over the world, open innovation is emerging and requires much more interactions between different actors with different organizational cultures: large firms and SMEs (i.e. industry), universities and research institutions (i.e. academia), as well as national and regional authorities for building the legal or incentive framework of innovation (i.e government). Certainly, flows of knowledge between these three spheres, which are also known as the triple helix, have always existed; but what appears to be new in an open innovation environment is the overlapping of their missions. In many areas such multi-actor interactions with overlapping roles did not emerge spontaneously, as was the case with the United States.Based on robust cases studied by researchers and practical experiences of personnel involved in innovation at public or private institutions, this book successively discusses the policy framework in Europe and Japan, the new role for universities due to intellectual property reform or technology transfer promotion, the new challenges for firms in terms of licensing, patents, corporate venturing, including entrepreneurship, incubation, venture capital or cross-industry knowledge sharing.All issues addressed in this book are clearly those toward regional innovation policies and practices that are open in nature. It contains descriptions and analysis of the various approaches taken by industrial, governmental, and academic players in various regions of Japan (Tohoku, Tokyo) and Europe (France, Belgium). The mix of theoretical and empirical material collected in this book was first presented at an international symposium in Tokyo.The dynamics of regional innovation is an on-going issue, and we are still standing at the threshold of this field of research. It is exactly why such a book is needed now.

This monograph presents the experience in the implementation of smart specialization strategies (S3) from multilevel policy governance, as well as from the bottom-up perspectives of firms, clusters, and networks in selected European countries. The presented research focuses on relevance and feasibility of the S3 adoption, emphasizing the importance of linking policy considerations with partnerships at lower governance levels. The major contribution of the presented research rests in theoretical implications and practical recommendations relevant for the implementation of regional S3 in the European context, with the possibility of place-based adoption in other environments. The book is also valuable for synthesizing the most recent advancements in smart specialization as a policy concept and the concept of transformation and growth for territorial units and economic entities. This book aims to further diffuse and expand the academic community’s learning of the new S3 approach in Europe and beyond. The book will be of interest and useful to the academic community of researchers and doctoral students focused on regional innovation development and related policy, as well as on entrepreneurship, networks, and clusters. Public sector professionals dealing with regional development, regional innovation policies, and industrial transformation will also benefit from its content.