Does Geographical Proximty Matters for Innovation? The Case for European Regions

The increasing globalization, challenges for the competitiveness, and resources prioritization are among the causes forcing the European (EU) regions to rethink their overall approach to regional economic development. To deal with such a complexity, EU policy makers deployed a program called Smart Specialisation Strategies (SSS) which aims at consolidating the sources of regional competitive advantage by making effective and efficient use of public investment in R&D. By promoting SSS, national and regional governments are attempting to enhance the competitiveness of firms and clusters. Then, the study of clusters along with their evolutionary and spatial dynamics is put on top of the agenda of EU policy makers. To better understand the determinants of clusters in Europe we first, investigate the role played by technological specialization and diversification; second, find empirical evidence to whether the link between geographical proximity and regional innovation activity exists; finally, explore the co-existence of cluster dynamics and the deployment of SSS

The Light and Shade of Knowledge Recombination: A Systematic Look at the Bioinformatics Patent Scenario

This research focuses on a special case of General Purpose Technology: Bioinformatics. It explores whether – and to what extent – Bioinformatics inventions build upon inherently diverse knowledge sources. Precisely, the role of scientific and technological diversity (measured with Shannon-Wiener diversity index) as driver of impactful Bioinformatics inventions (measured at different standard deviations of the forward citations distribution) is investigated. To this purpose, we carried out an analysis of both Non-Patent and Patent references cited into Bioinformatics patented inventions in the period 1976-2014. Results from a series of logistic regression models indicate that different degrees of impact require different degrees of knowledge diversity; at the same time, and importantly for practitioners and scholars, recombining diverse scientific and technological knowledge bases not always lead to impactful inventions. In other terms: the interplay of science and technology is not always the best option to get impactful inventions

Building an ANFIS-based Decision Support System for Regional Growth: The Case of European Regions

This paper proposes a Decision Support System that can provide European policy makers with systematic guidance in allocating and prioritizing scant public resources. We do so by taking the stance of the Smart Specialisation Strategies which aim at consolidating the regional strengths and make effective and efficient use of public investment in R&D. By applying the ANFIS method we were able to understand how – and to what extent – the competitiveness drivers promoted technological development and how the latter contributes to the economic growth of European regions. We used socio-economic, spatial, and patent-based data to train, test and validate the models. What emerges is that an increase of R&D investments enhances the regional employment rate and the number of patents per capita; in turn, by taking into account the several combinations of specialization and diversification indicators, this leads to an increase of the regional GDP

Academics as orchestrators of continuous innovation ecosystems: Towards a fourth generation of CI initiatives

In this paper, we shed light on why academics are in one of the best positions to orchestrate inter–organisational initiatives of continuous innovation (CI) within an innovation context that is shifting towards an open collaborative ecosystem mode. Two rationales seem to explain the potential key role of academics within a CI ecosystem: 1) their independence; 2) their compliance to CI ecosystem's purposes - independently by its type. The implications of the five papers invited to be part of the special issue, and formerly presented at the 14th International CINet Conference in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, are also discussed

On designers’ use of biomimicry tools during the new product development process: an empirical investigation

As technological problems and societal challenges become increasingly complex, designers are urged to recombine knowledge from different sources in order to innovate. In this article we question how nature may be the key source of inspiration and whether it can impact the new product development (NPD) process. We shed new light on whether designers and researchers are: first, familiar with biomimicry tools; second, aware of their characteristics; third, in favour of using biomimicry tools in the NPD process; and fourth, able to assess the impact of biomimicry tools on the NPD performance. By analysing survey data, counterintuitive results emerged concerning both the awareness of the biomimetic tools and their impact on the NPD innovation outcomes

The Advent of Practice Theories in Research on Sustainable Consumption: Past, Current and Future Directions of the Field

The application of practice theories in the domain of sustainability research in consumer studies is increasingly advocated based on the premise that this allows to analyse consumption as a social phenomenon. Consequently, the applications of social practice theories to this field are expanding geometrically and to date, little retrospective work on this evolution has been made. We conduct a bibliometric analysis of applications of practice theories in the domain of sustainability research in consumer studies. Our results show a temporal succession of research trends: ‘consumer identity’ dominated the field between 2009 and 2012, ‘business and governance’ between 2012 and 2014, ‘sustainable consumption and production’ between 2013 and 2014, ‘urban living and policy’ between 2014 and 2015 and ‘household energy’ from 2015 until the present. We see a high potential of future applications of practice theories in the fields of the sharing and circular economy, as well as in research on smart cities. We provide new insights into the evolution and future trends of applications of social practice theory to domains that are relevant for research on sustainability and consumer studies

An adaptive stigmergy-based system for evaluating technological indicator dynamics in the context of smart specialization

Regional innovation is more and more considered an important enabler of welfare. It is no coincidence that the European Commission has started looking at regional peculiarities and dynamics, in order to focus Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialization towards effective investment policies. In this context, this work aims to support policy makers in the analysis of innovation-relevant trends. We exploit a European database of the regional patent application to determine the dynamics of a set of technological innovation indicators. For this purpose, we design and develop a software system for assessing unfolding trends in such indicators. In contrast with conventional knowledge-based design, our approach is biologically-inspired and based on self-organization of information. This means that a functional structure, called track, appears and stays spontaneous at runtime when local dynamism in data occurs. A further prototyping of tracks allows a better distinction of the critical phenomena during unfolding events, with a better assessment of the progressing levels. The proposed mechanism works if structural parameters are correctly tuned for the given historical context. Determining such correct parameters is not a simple task since different indicators may have different dynamics. For this purpose, we adopt an adaptation mechanism based on differential evolution. The study includes the problem statement and its characterization in the literature, as well as the proposed solving approach, experimental setting and results

Assembling Sustainable Smart City Transitions: An Interdisciplinary Theoretical Perspective

This Special Issue begins with a middle-range theory of sustainable smart city transitions, which forms bridges between theorizing in smart city development studies and some of the foundational assumptions underpinning transition management and system innovation research, human geography, spatial planning, and critical urban scholarship. This interdisciplinary theoretical formulation details our evidence-based interpretation of how smart city transitions should be conceptualized and enacted in order to overcome the oversimplification fallacy resulting from corporate discourses on smart urbanism. By offering a broad and realistic understanding of smart city transitions, the proposed theory combines different smart-city-related concepts in a model which attempts to expose what causal mechanisms surface in sustainable smart city transitions and to guide empirical inquiry in smart city research. Together with all the authors contributing to this Special Issue, our objective is to give smart city research more robust scientific foundations and to generate theoretical propositions upon which subsequent large-scale empirical testing can be conducted. With the proposed middle-range theory, different empirical settings can be investigated by using the same analytical elements, facilitating the cross-case analysis and synthesis of the systematic research efforts which are progressively contributing to shedding light on the assemblage of sustainable smart city transitions

Understanding smart cities : innovation ecosystems, technological advancements, and societal challenges

Smart Cities initiatives are spreading all around the globe at a phenomenal pace. Their bold ambition is to increase the competitiveness of local communities through innovation while increasing the quality of life for its citizens through better public services and a cleaner environment. Prior research has shown contrasting views and a multitude of dimensions and approaches to look at this phenomenon. In spite of the fact that this can stimulate the debate, it lacks a systematic assessment and an integrative view. The papers in the special issue on “Understanding Smart Cities: Innovation Ecosystems, Technological Advancements, and Societal Challenges” take stock of past work and provide new insights through the lenses of a hybrid framework. Moving from these premises, we offer an overview of the topic by featuring possible linkages and thematic clusters. Then, we sketch a novel research agenda for scholars, practitioners, and policy makers who wish to engage in – and build – a critical, constructive, and conducive discourse on Smart Cities

B2B relationship management in complex product systems (CoPS)

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