Knowledge, Innovation, and Regional Performance: Toward Smart Innovation Policies

Abstract

If the need to develop a knowledge economy at the regional level is increasingly evident to policy makers in Europe, the right set of policies to accomplish such an aim has not yet been devised, and is an important policy debate also at the European Community level. This special issue is a step forward in this direction. The design and implementation of regional innovation policies should take the specificities of each regional mode of innovation into account, and these peculiarities can be highlighted only through sound scientific conceptual and empirical analyses in which the regional dimension is carefully taken into consideration and the spatial effects of policy tools like R&D investments and innovation incentives clearly assessed in terms of their impact on regional growth in different regional contexts. It is in this spirit that this special issue has been conceived.

Analyzing the Space–Time Dynamics of Innovation in China: ESDA and Spatial Panel Approaches

“…Cheung and Lin () used provincial data to study spillover effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on innovation in China, and Shang, Poon, and Yue () studied the role of regional knowledge spillovers on China's innovation. It is widely acknowledged that provinces and states are an appropriate scale of analysis since they are important political jurisdictions that are easy to identify and understand (Capello ; Crescenzi and Rodríguez‐Pose ; Feldman ; Paci and Marrocu ). Regional innovation policies, such as R&D policies and government investment, tend to be based on provinces or states, particularly in China, and therefore, they are often the basis for the formation and the boundaries of regional innovation systems, although metropolitan and county levels are even more popular scales of analysis.…”

Evaluation of government‐supported provincial innovation competitiveness—Evidence from China

“…However, Strumpf (2002) find that government decentralization doesn't definitely induce policy innovation. Therefore, when designing innovation policies, the government should pay attention to regional differentiation and the effective combination of knowledge production factors (Capello, 2013). The most efficient territories exhibit a great deal of heterogeneity and the relative efficiency in knowledge production is extremely differentiated across regions.…”

“…The most efficient territories exhibit a great deal of heterogeneity and the relative efficiency in knowledge production is extremely differentiated across regions. Therefore, when designing innovation policies, the government should pay attention to regional differentiation and the effective combination of knowledge production factors (Capello, 2013).…”

Relatedness in the implementation of Smart Specialisation Strategy: a first empirical assessment

“…The design of S3 required national and regional authorities to identify technological domains where to concentrate private and public investment in R&D and innovation (Foray, ; Foray et al, ). The concept of S3 is based on two fundamental ideas: a) a region should not spread its investments in too many different fields and focus them on few technological domains (specialisation); b) these domains have to be chosen in order to enhance or complement the research and productive assets the region is already endowed with (smart) (Capello, ; Foray et al, ; Foray & Goenega, ). The design of the S3 introduced two main novelties.…”