Taking into Account the Human Factor in Regional Innovation Systems and Policies

Abstract

Innovation is considered a key driver for economic growth and is usually studied in the form of systems, with the regional level being arguably the most important. Despite constantly improving technological infrastructure, the human-related aspects of innovation are still the most important part of the innovation process. The human factor in innovation essentially consists of three components: (1) human capital, which refers to education, knowledge, and skills; (2) social capital, which refers to the strength of social links and social coherence; and (3) psychological capital, which refers to peoples' values, attitudes, and behaviors. The research findings confirmed this view and showed which specific indicators of the three types of capital had a significant impact on innovation output. A new, extended regional innovation scoreboard emphasizing the human factor, is proposed. Also, based on the findings, and bearing in mind current EU innovation policies, a number of measures are proposed in order to suggest "more human" smart specialization policies in order to increase innovation in European regions and coherence between them.

How Intellectual Capital Predicts Innovation Output in EU Regions: Implications for Sustainable Development

“…These results are worth considering. The detrimental impact of the percentage of people with tertiary education on innovation output was also found in a previous, broader study conducted by the authors [54]. In addition, the present research indicates that participation in lifelong learning also has a similar detrimental effect.…”

“…However, their importance for innovation output, which has also been highlighted by the authors' previous work [54], means that studies seeking to understand regional innovation should take other factors of intellectual capital into account apart from human capital since education and skills do not reflect the entire human contribution to the innovation process. This could include the creation of dedicated indices to measure social capital, which is a quite challenging task.…”

“…Psychological capital, however, is also difficult to benchmark. Its measurement depends solely on the use of proxy indicators, usually based on self-reports, which can create a number of complications for research [54].…”

“…The objective of this paper is to identify how intellectual capital predicts innovation output on the regional level and consider the implications of this for achieving sustainable development in EU regions. In order to build on the authors' previous work [16,54], a new, updated and streamlined model is proposed for measuring the concepts of human capital and social capital. This model was tested by the use of exploratory factor analysis in order to examine whether the indicators chosen according to the definitions and literature on human and social capital do indeed represent specific factors.…”

Technological Sovereignty as Ability, Not Autarky

“…Human capital is an important determinant of a polity's and society's ability to produce and absorb innovations (see e.g. Faems and Subramanian, 2013, Lenihan et al, 2019, or Martinidis et al, 2021 for recent evidence and further references).…”