Challenges of knowledge combination in strategic regional innovation processes - the Creative Science Park in Aveiro

Abstract

This paper considers how heterogeneous groups of regional stakeholders design and implement strategic activities that contribute to their region's innovation capacity. We aim to understand how these stakeholder groups attempt to create new regional development pathways, and explore why otherwise enthusiastic and willing partnerships might fail to progress. We conceptualize this in terms of partners seeking to develop a shared actionable knowledge set as the basis for future development, and contend that one explanation for these failures might be a failure of the ways that partners combine their knowledge. We conceptualize strategic processes in terms of a series of distinct phases, and identify how problems in knowledge combination processes might manifest themselves in preventing the creation of valuable knowledge for subsequent action. Drawing on a detailed empirical case study of the Creative Science Park in Aveiro (Portugal), we argue that a better understanding of inter-stakeholder knowledge combination processes is necessary for creating and implementing better strategic transformational development processes for regions.

Combinatorial knowledge dynamics, innovative performance, and transition studies

“…In the past, academic papers and patents were the main research objects. In the context of transformation, cross-domain R&D and recombinant innovative activities have been the new engine for the industrial revolution and regional economic growth (Grillitsch et al, 2018;Mewes, 2019;Nieth and Benneworth, 2020). As a country that needed to catch up technologically, China has prioritized technological breakthroughs and disruptive innovation since 2015.…”

University Science Parks as an Innovative Tool for University-Business Cooperation

“…University science parks (USPs) and research centres (RCs) are one of the hybrid organization tools for connecting the academic and private sectors (Champenois and Etzkowitz, 2018). Over the past two decades, USPs been a continued source of interest for academics and policy makers due to their potential to aid innovation (Messina et al 2022;Nieth and Benneworth, 2020). They create a suitable space for creating innovation using existing resources at universities, research institutes, research departments of companies and governments, and improve them through their interactions.…”

Understanding the drivers of patent performance of University Science Parks in Turkey

“…University science parks have been a continued source of interest for scholars and policy makers over the past two decades due to their potential to aid innovation and consequently regional development (Messina et al 2021;Nieth & Benneworth, 2020). The rise in their interest can be dated back to the Bayh-Dole Act enacted in the USA in the 1980s, which was a catalyst for similar legislation in other countries aimed at facilitating university patenting and stimulating the commercialization of academic research results (Weckowska et al 2018).…”

“…Indeed, the aim of many university science parks is to develop effective infrastructures and supports which will bridge the knowledge gap between academia and industry (Fikirkoca & Saritas 2012;Nieth & Benneworth, 2020). Therefore, they are a core entity within an innovation ecosystem (Yan et al, 2020).…”