Regional Innovation Systems: designing for the future

Objective

One of the main objective of the proposal is to find out whether regional innovation systems are becoming more divergent (pursuing their own path), or convergent because of "institutional borrowing", including the effect of EC policies. The proposers will study regional innovation systems in eleven regions by exploring their differences and similarities, and relating their systemic structure to the contemporary needs of global industrial competitiveness and innovation foresight, and learning capacity.

The study will also try to identify the nature of the key design elements of an institutional innovation network architecture appropriate to supporting the main anticipated innovation needs of regionally clustered firms for the foreseeable future. In order to achieve this goal, the research work will focus three levels:

- at firm level - in what ways have conditions for competitiveness and innovation changed? What organization innovations occur?
- at institutional level - What changes in policy by private or public institutions occur?
- at innovation and technology policy levels - What kind of support is provided by intermediary and public institutions, how, and is this changing?

The policy objectives are:

- to provide policy-makers information of good practice for enhancing regional growth projects.
- to help policy-makers assess different kinds of European regional innovation practices and to judge their tendencies towards convergence or divergence.
- to stimulate learning effects regarding transfer of endogenous innovation potential for sub-national and EU policy-markers.
- to raise awareness of the need for new or adjusted EU and other programmes.

Five workshops (Month 1, 6, 10, 18, 23) will be implemented for the preparation of each workpackage and presentation of the final report.

Programme(s)

• FP4-TSER - Specific programme of targeted socio-economic research, 1994-1998

Topic(s)

• 0103 - Methods, tools and approaches

Funding Scheme

CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Coordinator

University of Wales, Cardiff

Address

33 Corbett Road
CF1 1XL Cardiff
United Kingdom

Participants (11)

Consorzio Interuniversitario per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo

Italy

Address

Via Domenico Chelini 7
00197 Roma

Institute for Social Conflict Research - Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Hungary

Address

33,Benczur U.
1068 Budapest

Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek

Netherlands

Address

97,Schoenmakerstraat
2600 JA Delft

Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg

Germany

Address

21,Feldkirchenstrasse 21
96052 Bamberg

TECHNOPOLIS LTD.

United Kingdom

Address

100,Church Street 100
BN1 1UJ Brighton

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY

Spain

Address

83,Avenida Lehendakari Agirre 83
48015 Bilbao

UNIVERSITY OF AVEIRO

Portugal

Address

Campus De Santiago
3810-193 Aveiro/eixo

UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE

Finland

Address

4,Tullikatu 6
33014 Tampere

Université Catholique de Louvain

Belgium

Address

1/14,Place Montesquieu 1/14
1348 Louvain-la-neuve

VIENNA UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Austria

Address

2-6,Rossauerlaende 23
1090 Wien

WARSAW UNIVERSITY

Poland

Address

30,Krakowskie Przedmiescie 30
00 927 Warszawa