New forms of regional industrial policy in Europe: How do policy makers understand 'competitiveness' and 'clusters'?

The last decade has seen a revival of regional industrial policy in the Western world. New policies have been built on recent insights into the drivers of competitive advantage and are characterized by a focus on local production systems, on networking and partnerships, and more strategic forms of policy intervention. In addition, policy formulation and implementation has generally become part of an interactive process of consultation and consensus building, and, to a large extent, involves the co-ordination and reshaping of existing instruments rather than the development of entirely new ones. This paper will discuss the emergence of new forms of industrial policy targeted on regional ?competitiveness? on the basis of case studies undertaken in Germany, the UK and Spain. The aim of the paper is to understand how the concept and understanding of ?competitiveness? by local makers and other actors has influenced the shaping of local industrial policy. Since all the case studies involve laggard regions, one of the key issues of the debate is how policy makers perceive the balance between more ingenious, innovation-oriented approaches and approaches targeted in foreign investments. To understand the different outcomes in the various regions, account is taken of the governance framework for industrial policy making and implementation, the concepts and models invoked and used by policy makers, the impact of external factors such as funding conditions and European programs and, most fundamentally, the industrial and political traditions which characterize each region. The paper will point at some of the remarkable changes concepts have made on their way from theoretical and conceptual thinking to policy implementation, and will discuss the implications of these changes for academic research as well as policy-making. The work for this paper has been funded under the European Programmes ADAPT (Core project) and HCM (EUNIT network)

New forms of regional industrial policy in Europe: How do policy makers understand 'competitiveness' and 'clusters'?

The last decade has seen a revival of regional industrial policy in the Western world. New policies have been built on recent insights into the drivers of competitive advantage and are characterized by a focus on local production systems, on networking and partnerships, and more strategic forms of policy intervention. In addition, policy formulation and implementation has generally become part of an interactive process of consultation and consensus building, and, to a large extent, involves the co-ordination and reshaping of existing instruments rather than the development of entirely new ones. This paper will discuss the emergence of new forms of industrial policy targeted on regional ?competitiveness? on the basis of case studies undertaken in Germany, the UK and Spain. The aim of the paper is to understand how the concept and understanding of ?competitiveness? by local makers and other actors has influenced the shaping of local industrial policy. Since all the case studies involve laggard regions, one of the key issues of the debate is how policy makers perceive the balance between more ingenious, innovation-oriented approaches and approaches targeted in foreign investments. To understand the different outcomes in the various regions, account is taken of the governance framework for industrial policy making and implementation, the concepts and models invoked and used by policy makers, the impact of external factors such as funding conditions and European programs and, most fundamentally, the industrial and political traditions which characterize each region. The paper will point at some of the remarkable changes concepts have made on their way from theoretical and conceptual thinking to policy implementation, and will discuss the implications of these changes for academic research as well as policy-making. The work for this paper has been funded under the European Programmes ADAPT (Core project) and HCM (EUNIT network

Critical practice of grant application and administration: an intervention

Introduction: Researchers experience increasing pressures to connect with bodies that finance their projects. In this climate, critical scholars face many obstacles as they seek to navigate the treacherous waters of securing external funds. To debate these challenges, the ACME Editorial Collective organized a panel for the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Las Vegas. This intervention represents a follow-up discussion and collective writing process among some of the panelists and members of the audience who attended the panel. Below, we examine the neoliberalization of the current funding systems, discuss the implications for research practice, and make suggestions for critical engagement and transformation. Our suggestions, however, will not be easy to implement, as we can infer from the experience of the radical scholars of the post-1968 generation whose ascension into the upper echelons of North American and European university systems was also associated with the neoliberalization of the funding systems. This intervention represents a modest contribution in the tradition of critical research practice of creating the possibilities for progressive change

Framing blockchain. Een framing-analyse van blockchain in de Nederlandse pers van 2015-2019

Contains fulltext : 219965pub.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)35 p

The topological arrangements of Nijmegen’s ‘Walk of the World’ : From a military march to ‘martial entrepreneurialism’

Since 1916, the Dutch city of Nijmegen annually organizes the Four-Day Marches, the world's largest international walking event, shaping the city along the way. This paper studies the 'coeval becoming' of the March and city through the lens of 'glocal' topological arrangements, drawing on a 'wheeling' racialized assemblage perspective. This wheeling, we argue, scripts Nijmegen and its March through four topological arrangements: Nijmegen as Host, Nijmegen as Global Node, Nijmegen as Haunted Body, and Nijmegen as Empty Green. In conclusion, we find a strong emphasis on able-bodies and branding, yielding a characterization of 'martial entrepreneurialism'.Peer reviewe

Dissecting the urban(ized) binoculars. ´looking at´ urban futures

Book of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017In current discourses and practices, the future and the urban are frequently connected: our society’s future is expected to be urban and accordingly, the anticipation of futures for our cities and urbansociety-to-come proliferates (e.g. Glaeser, 2011; Gleeson, 2012). In the practices and processes of such urban futuring, the discipline of urban planning plays a central role. By its very nature and functionality, urban planning engages with the not yet of the city (a.o. Conell, 2009. Hiller and Heakey, 2016). Indeed, today, urban planners together with a diverse range of stakeholders increasingly engage in anticipations for our urban futures: how will our cities and the urban-society-to-come look like? an urban planner looks forward in time, to have some kind of impression of what the urban future might bring, and subsequently, hopes to influence and give direction to that future through the decisions and actions of planning in the present (Connell, 2009). Alongside and combined with more standardized procedures and tools, planners today have a variety of foresight methods and techniques at their disposal for their anticipatory action, ranging from forecasting and backcasting to envisioning and scenario-making (e.g. Ratcliffe and Krawczyk, 2011).Published versio