Emerging regional innovation policies for industry 4.0: analyzing the digital innovation hub program in European regions

Abstract

Purpose Industry 4.0 or digitization, from a regional innovation system (RIS) and policy perspective to improve regional innovation, is over-looked. Specifically, this paper aims to focus on analyzing the nascent European Commission (EC) digital innovation hub (DIH) program, designed for fostering transition into Industry 4.0 in regions and facilitating new path development. Design/methodology/approach Empirically, 10 Spanish DIH is explored through interviews and secondary data analysis. Findings The results suggest that DIHs despite their emerging and trial-and-error stage are designed for promoting multi-actor collaborative platforms including non-local actors to stimulate transition into Industry 4.0 by promoting place-based collaboration alliances that respond to local/regional contextual specificities and demands. These regional-based platforms facilitate public-private partnerships that co-design policy initiatives resulting from co-participation and negotiation of spatially-bounded oriented initiatives for digitizing. Originality/value The authors answer: what are the key characteristics of emerging European-level regional innovation policies aimed at facilitating Industry 4.0 in regions? This is the first study on the topic.

Industry 4.0 HUB: A Collaborative Knowledge Transfer Platform for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

“…It intends to build a European network of DIHs that are one-stop shops to help companies improve their processes, products, and services by using digital technologies. DIHs provide access to technical expertise and experimentation by acting as knowledge transfer platforms [25][26][27]. To support this initiative, the European Commission has proposed the creation of the first-ever Digital Europe Programme, which will invest EUR 9.2 billion to align the next long-term EU budget (2021-2027) with increasing digital challenges [27][28][29].…”

Digital Services as a Component of Reginal Innovation Systems

“…The results of research [3] suggest that Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) despite their emerging and trial-and-error stage are designed for promoting multi-actor collaborative platforms including non-local actors to stimulate transition into Industry 4.0 by promoting placebased collaboration alliances that respond to local/regional contextual specificities and demands. These regional-based platforms facilitate public-private partnerships that co-design policy initiatives resulting from co-participation and negotiation of spatially-bounded oriented initiatives for digitizing.…”

Complementarity of European RIS Territories Towards Manufacturing Educational Products

“…RIS describes the unequal geographic variation of innovation and strategies to boost regional innovation capacity. Academics illustrate the development of new path creation or the various ways of boosting the development of new activities and industries in regions to generate growth using the RIS approach [11]. It is thus important to close the huge gap between supply and demand, in other words, to close the gap between the jobs that are emerging from this radical technological development, need to be filled and talents with the skillset capable to fill industry 4.0 enabling jobs.…”