Spaces of Innovation: learning, proximity and the ecological turn

Contrary to the fashionable “death of distance” thesis, the socio-spatial context for innovation remains as important as ever for firms, networks and the public institutions that tend to be neglected in orthodox narratives of learning. In this article we explore the changing socio-spatial dynamics of innovation through the medium of three arguments: (i) that the “learning region” debate was worth having because it triggered a fruitful dialogue between innovation theorists and economic geographers; (ii) that geographical proximity remains central to our understanding of learning and innovation and should not be reduced to, or conflated with, physical co-location; and (iii) that “the ecological turn” challenges conventional conceptions of learning, innovation and development, posing unsettling questions about the forces of path dependency, especially in less favoured regions.Learning, regions, innovation, proximities

Capturing the value of university-business collaboration in education requires flexible approach to measurement tools

Co-operation between businesses and universities is now firmly on the agenda. However, co-operation in the field of education plays something of a runner-up to co-operation in the field of research, particularly when it comes to valuing and measuring the outcomes of this. Adrian Healy recently led an exploratory study for the European Commission’s Directorate General of Education and Culture, examining the benefits of co-operation in the field of education, how this is currently being assessed and what approaches could be adopted in the future

Smart specialization in a centralized state: strengthening the regional contribution in North East Romania

Regional Innovation Strategies 3 (RIS3) are intended to promote the economic transformation of European Union (EU) regions, particularly those that are lagging in development. The introduction of RIS3 has not been without its critics. This is not unexpected given its rapid, and, for some, rather hasty, move from conceptual idea to mainstream EU policy. This paper explores the introduction of the RIS3 approach in North East Romania, one of the EU’s least developed regions. Whilst Romania has launched a national RIS3, the Regional Development Agency for North East Romania also voluntarily embarked upon a process of developing a regional RIS3 for the North East region. This provides a valuable opportunity to explore different spatial dimensions of the smart specialization approach and offers the opportunity to consider the extent to which active and well-regarded research actors can act as anchors to a RIS3 approach in a less developed region. The paper argues that whilst the experience of developing a regional RIS3 offers strong learning benefits, the effectiveness of this will be dependent on supporting institutional structures

Innovation and regional economic resilience: an exploratory analysis

The varying rates of recovery of European regional economies from the 2007-2008 economic crisis have raised interesting questions about the sources of economic resilience. Policy discourse has increasingly asserted the role played by innovation in facilitating rapid recovery from economic shocks, whilst evolutionary thinking has highlighted the specific importance of innovation capacity. However, empirical evidence on this is lacking. This paper addresses this gap by providing new empirical analysis of the relationship between regional innovation capacity and the resilience of European regions to the crisis. It finds that regions identified as Innovation Leaders at the time of the crisis were significantly more likely to have either resisted the crisis or recovered quickly from it (i.e. within three years). This provides important insights for evolutionary approaches theorising the relationship between innovation and resilience

Measuring Regional Economic Resilience across Europe: Operationalising a complex concept

This paper describes an approach developed to measure regional economic resilience across Europe which is novel in three key dimensions. Firstly, it seeks to date regional downturns as opposed to assuming that all regional economies are affected by economic shocks at the same point in time; secondly, it measures the amplitude and duration of economic downturns and subsequent recoveries; and thirdly, as well as measuring recovery, it measures the resistance of regional economies to economic shocks. The paper applies this methodology to selected European countries to provide an analysis of differential regional responses to several economic shocks since the early 1990s. The paper then reflects upon the utility of this methodology for operationalizing regional economic resilience in cross-comparative studies

R&D in the regions: The regional impact of EU technology programmes in the UK.

This research explores the role and rising importance of EU R&D instruments in regional economic development in the UK since 1999. It poses the simple question of 'who gets what, and why', and how this conforms to theories of innovation. The approach combines an analysis of both the EU's Structural Funds and Framework Programmes, two instruments which are rarely considered together at the regional level. The research design is informed by a critical realist perspective which incorporates recent thinking on the role that relational geographies play in influencing social structures, the behaviour of groups and individuals and the complex interplay between these. The study centres on a qualitative, multiple case-study, approach using the UK's regions and Devolved Administrations as the unit of analysis. The study provides a robust empirical evidential base to the pattern of policy and practice running through the EU's R&D instruments in the UK and sheds new light on the 'territorial' debate which is prevalent both in EU policy circles and academic theorising. The research highlights the tendency for regional policy-makers to fall back on narratives extolling local capacity, local knowledge spillovers and locally-orientated networks. The research demonstrates that in a world of flows spaces do matter, and that the boundaries of these spaces can exert power. Equally, however, to assume that the region forms a natural arena for collaboration is ill-advised. The thesis finds that current thinking on patterns of spatial innovation underplays the importance of the territorial dialectic between the geographically proximate and the relational. It finds that the parallel worlds of practice revealed by the Structural Funds and the Framework Programmes epitomize the dialectical space of the region. The work illustrates the complex, divided, spaces forming administrative regions, and how policy-makers shape, and create, these spaces through their actions when seeking to construct the knowledge economy

Monitoring groundwater use as a domestic water source by urban households: Analysis of data from Lagos State, Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa with implications for policy and practice

The fundamental importance of groundwater for urban drinking water supplies in sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly recognised. However, little is known about the trends in urban groundwater development by individual households and its role in securing safely-managed drinking water supplies. Anecdotal evidence indicates a thriving self-supply movement to exploit groundwater in some urban sub-Saharan African settings, but empirical evidence, or analysis of the benefits and drawbacks, remains sparse. Through a detailed analysis of official datasets for Lagos State, Nigeria we examine the crucial role played by groundwater and, specifically, by household self-supply for domestic water provision. We then set this in the context of Nigeria and of sub-Saharan Africa. One of the novelties of this multi-scalar approach is that it provides a granular understanding from large-scale datasets. Our analysis confirms the importance of non-piped water supplies in meeting current and future drinking water demand by households in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the role played, through self-supply, by groundwater. Our results demonstrate inconsistencies between datasets, and we make recommendations for the future. We argue that a key actor in the provision of drinking water supplies, the individual household, is largely overlooked by officially reported data, with implications for both policy and practice

Shaping smart specialisaion: the role of place-specific factors in advanced, intermediate and less-developed European regions

This paper examines the ways by which organizational and institutional features of regional innovation systems shape smart specialization practices in less-developed, intermediate and advanced regions. Drawing on research from 15 European regions, it shows that the implantation of smart specialization creates challenges in all three types of regions. At the same time, there is evidence that smart specialization supports policy-learning and system-building efforts in less-developed regions and facilitates policy reorientation and system transformation in more advanced regions