Factors for the Emergence and Growth of Environmental Technology Industries in Upper Austria

Knowledge bases, innovation and multi-scalar relationships: which kind of territorial boundedness of industrial clusters?

“…Environmental Technology firms are strongly oriented to the national market, although we see also a certain role of the regional and a shift to international markets. This is in line with findings from an earlier study based on a broader data set that also showed a clear shift towards international markets for Upper Austria Environmental Technology firms (Tödtling et al 2014). In Medical Technologies and New Media we see despite a continuing strong role of the regional and national markets a certain shift to the international market in recent years.…”

“…Existing technological capabilities, supplying firms, and sophisticated local buyers (such as steel and engineering firms and public demand) were thus essential factors for the emergence and growth of these new products and technology areas. In addition, two cluster initiatives and policy organisations were set up to support companies in this field since the 2000s (Tödtling et al, 2014).…”

“…This and the importance of the regional and national health system and regulations keeps the sector tied to the region and the national level, although we can observe shifts to the European and international scales more recently for regulations, demand and related firms. Environmental Technology firms in Upper Austria, in comparison, rely more often on applied knowledge from technical colleges and on transfer agencies, as well as on public demand and subsidies, leading also to a strong rootedness in the regional and national economies and innovation systems (Tödtling et al 2014). Different from the other two sectors New Media firms in Vienna mainly interact with other cluster and sector firms in a localglobal pattern (Sinozic and Tödtling 2014).…”

Regional innovation policies for new path development – beyond neo-liberal and traditional systemic views

“…Relevant policies include demand-side instruments (public procurement, 'green' infrastructure investment), supply-side instruments (financial subsidies to infant industries, skills and qualifications, public R&D) and support of knowledge exchange via such 'horizontal platforms'. Analyses of green-tech clusters in metropolitan areas (Marra, Antonelli, & Pozzi, 2017) and industrial regions (Tödtling, Höglinger, Sinozic, & Auer, 2014) provide support for the view that cross-industrial knowledge circulation and policies aiming to facilitate such flows are superior to traditional cluster approaches. These studies also point to the significance of other policy measures like environmental standards, public demand and procurement (Tödtling et al, 2014) and examine the gradual transformation of green-tech clusters into open cross-industry platforms that combine competences, specializations and capabilities from several industries, such as software, transportation, analytics, construction and biotechnology (Marra et al, 2017).…”

Smart specialization and participatory processes in green path renewal. Analysis of the forest-based bioeconomy in sparsely populated regions in the Nordics

“…It refers to intrapath changes in established industries, led by the adoption or development of environmentally friendly (or at least less harmful) technologies or practices, in an attempt to reconcile economic growth with sustainable development (Grillitsch and Hansen 2019;Trippl et al 2020). Examples of green path renewal include industrial diversification to transform brown industries into green industries (Grillitsch and Trippl 2018), or branching towards technologically related sectors (Tödtling et al 2014).…”