“…We increasingly see the two notions of competitiveness and network governance in academic debates, but even more so in policy documents supported by international institutions, local policy-makers and politicians, although both are complicated and are widely disputed (Krugman, 1994 and. These diffi culties, however, have not discouraged discussions and studies on urban and regional competitiveness (Budd and Hirmis, 2004;Boschma, 2004;Kresl, 1995;Begg, 1999;Gordon, 1999) and network governance (O'Toole, 1997;Kickert et al, 1997;Sotarauta and Linnamaa, 1998;Healey, 2004;Le Gales, 2001;Leibovitz, 2003;Balducci et al, 2004;Meijers, 2005;Stanley, 2005).…”