R&D Cooperation in Innovation Systems—Some Lessons from the European Regional Innovation Survey (ERIS)

Our paper summarizes some of the main results of the European Regional Innovation Survey (ERIS) as far as they are discussed in this special issue of European Planning Studies . The overall target of the ERIS project is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of determinants crucial for the innovation potential of any region, i.e. innovative and non-innovative manufacturing firms, business services and research institutions, as well as the innovative linkages and networks between these actors. Empirical research is based upon almost 8600 questionnaires collected in 11 European regions. Results confirm some of the common hypotheses on the relationship between space and innovation networks but others are contrary to existing scientific knowledge. Obviously the impact of national innovation systems on the innovation activities of manufacturing firms in a given European region is-at least-as strong as the impact of the respective regional innovation system. The spatial range of innovative linkages significantly depends on the size, the type of the cooperation partner, the R&D intensity and the industry of the analysed manufacturing firm. For example, the higher the technology intensity of the industry, the greater is the need of each firm to use intraregional knowledge via innovation linkages. It is therefore an important task in regional innovation policy to promote network-building among firms and other actors of a regional innovation system and to interlink these intraregional networks with national and international knowledge sources.     

Regional Innovation Systems and Economic Performance: Between Regions and Nations

This article aims at assessing the diversity of regional innovation systems and their economic performance in Europe. We propose to adapt the social systems of innovation and production (SSIP) framework at the regional level by identifying the specific arrangements of each part of the innovation and production system. Three key features of European regions are investigated using this framework: the diversity of regional SSIP, the interplay of regional and national determinants of such systems, and the impact of SSIP on regional performance. We identify a typology of regional configurations resulting from the combination of scientific, technological, educational and industrial indicators, using multivariate data analysis. A variance analysis approach is then developed in order to test the existence of specific regional growth regimes. The results highlight a persistently high level of diversity of regional configurations, notably among knowledge intensive regions, but also show that national institutional settings remain of fundamental importance in shaping a number of regional configurations. A final conclusion relates to the weak correlation observed between the structural characteristics of regions and their performance over the 2003–2007 period: regional performance remains primarily shaped by national trends. Overall, the paper questions the regional dimension of these “systems”.     

Characteristics of Collaboration in Product Innovation in the Regional System of Innovation of East Gothia

The focus of this article is on product innovations introduced by firms (establishments) and the collaborations they enter into with other firms and organizations in carrying out this activity. The theoretical framework combines innovation theories with the literature on regional innovation systems and the knowledge-based economy. Empirically we have investigated characteristics of collaboration among manufacturing establishments in the region of East Gothia in Sweden, with specific focus on the number of employees involved in the innovation projects, mechanisms of knowledge transfer between organizations, as well as financing and patenting in relation to product innovations.     

Medical Technology's Source of Innovation

This article presents research based on a case study of Bern University Hospital and the Greater Bern Area that analyses the hospital's influence on innovation in the regional medical device industry. The study draws upon the concept of sectoral innovation systems enlarged with a space-oriented model of agents' innovation-related behaviour. Its main data stem from semi-structured interviews with representatives from regional companies and the hospital. The findings confirm the systemic character of innovation in medical technology and the role of university hospitals as the main functional source of medical device innovation. At the inception of the medical device industry, innovations were implemented in a regional setting, but with the maturation of the industry, this setting has yielded to an almost global setting for innovation. This international setting became prevalent largely due to the marketing considerations of the industry, showing that from an industrial management point of view, product innovation and the diffusion of innovation are heavily interlinked activities. The article concludes that the hospital's relevant influence at a regional level lies not in the present but in the past, when timely innovative impulses from physicians enabled this regional industry's successful participation in the emerging medical device sector.     

Managing the Global–Local Dimensions of Clusters and the Role of “Lead” Organizations: The Contrasting Cases of the Software and Medical Technology Clusters in the West of Ireland

The purpose of this paper is to investigate “leading” firms in an industrial cluster to understand how the balance between global and local dimensions of the cluster can be managed. Two cases of industry clusters, the software and medical technology clusters in the west of Ireland, are employed to examine how certain organizations can occupy a “lead” position and how—if at all—such organizations generate an agglomerative effect in a cluster. In the case of the medical technology cluster, the study shows that when large firms enact a leading role by influencing the technology trajectory of the region and stimulating the local dynamic, they can generate agglomerative effects, thereby enhancing the relevance and sustainability of clusters. Most significantly, it shows how leading organizations act as an important facilitator in connecting the global and local dimensions of clusters even in the absence of extensive local formal linkages. At the same time, the case of the software cluster reveals that the presence of large organizations alone does not inevitably stimulate such a clustering effect and emphasizes that appropriate characteristics and conditions need to be in place. Overall, while the study substantiates previous research on the significance of temporary and organized forms of proximity, it also shows the value that permanent geographical proximity can have, thereby contesting recent research that downplays the relevance of the clustering institution (e.g. Lorentzen, A. (2007) The geography of knowledge sourcing—A case study of Polish manufacturing enterprises, European Planning Studies, 15, pp. 467–486; Wickham, J. & Vecchi, A. (2008) Local firms and global reach: Business air travel and the Irish software cluster, European Planning Studies, 16, pp. 693–710).     

Do Regions Make a Difference? Regional Innovation Systems and Global Innovation Networks in the ICT Industry

Access to global innovation networks (GINs) has been unequal across the regions of the world. While certain regions are considered knowledge hubs in GINs, others still remain marginalized; this points to the role of regional innovation systems (RISs) in the emergence and development of GINs. Using firm-level data collected through a survey and case studies in 2009–2010, this paper systematically compares the patterns of global networks in the information and communications technology industry in a selection of European, Chinese and Indian regions. The results show that GINs are more common in regions which are not organizationally and institutionally thick, suggesting that GINs may be a compensatory mechanism for weaknesses in the RIS.     

Innovation Networks and Regional Development—Evidence from the European Regional Innovation Survey (ERIS): Theoretical Concepts,Methodological Approach,Empirical Basis and Introduction to the Theme Issue

A general consensus exists in the debate on innovation-oriented regional development, in which cooperation in innovation between manufacturing firms, service firms and research institutions continues to grow in importance with respect to business success and the economic performance of a region—at least for some region types. The academic discussion, thus far, has been shaped by a large number of outstanding theoretical studies focusing on this topic from the perspective of the innovative milieu concept, the network theory (spatial version), the regional innovation systems approach or the transaction cost theory. Up to now, comparative empirical studies have not been performed evaluating the significance of innovation networks over a sufficiently large and statistically representative data set for the various types of regions. This is the goal of this issue of European Planning Studies, which is introduced in this article. Briefly, the basic concepts for explaining network-oriented regional development are described and the essential features of the European Regional Innovation Survey (ERIS) are presented—developed by a research team of German economic geographers and regional economists. Between 1995 and 1999 ERIS carried out three extensive surveys in 11 European regions with a total return of 8635 questionnaires, in an effort to identify, systematize, and quantify linkages between innovative players. The question of the range of such innovative linkages plays a central role in this analysis.     

Integration and Europe's Defense Industry

The European Union's influence on defense industry mailers has increased in recent years. This is plaiting because the Treaty of Rome permits member stales to maintain armaments production and trade issues at the national level. The argument presented in this paper is that the predominant theories of European integration cannot adequately explain this shift in policymaking from the national to the regional level. Reactive spillover combines an appreciation of international environmental pressures with the concept of spillover.     

Regional Innovation Policies in the Czech Republic and the Case of Prague: An Emerging Role of a Regional Level?

The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of the development of Czech innovation policy which started to get its shape in the first years of the 21st century. The article traces its origins to a number of interlinked factors—the introduction of European regional policy in the Czech Republic, the increased inflow of foreign direct investment into R&D-intensive sectors and also the devolution of power to Czech regions that were established in 2001 and gave a new, regional dimension to research and innovation policy. It pays particular attention to the process through which the regionally-based innovation policy advocated by the European Union (EU) has been translated and adapted in the context of a new EU member state. As an illustration of the efforts at the regional level to make a better use of the potential of R&D and innovation in the regional development, a case study of a regional innovation strategy of the City of Prague is analysed. The City of Prague was selected for a critical analysis of an innovation system and innovation policy due to the fact that it is a region with significant but until now not fully exploited innovation potential and, in addition, its first innovation strategy has been recently adopted. The innovation strategy is closely scrutinized and the process of its elaboration is critically examined within the European and especially national context. The authors demonstrate that there is a lot of conceptual ambiguity and confusion associated with the process of transferring the experiences of Western European regions to the Czech Republic. The authors believe that at least some of their observations and analysis of weaknesses of the process through which the regional innovation strategy (RIS) has been carried out will have relevance for other Czech regions and even for other regions in the new EU member states.     

论抗日战争时期的云南铜业

抗日战争时期,中国国防用铜量急剧增加,但国土大部沦陷,云南成为抗战军需用铜唯一的供给地。国民政府经济部所属资源委员会与云南省政府共同组建"滇北矿务局","彻底管理"云南铜业,有效整合云南铜矿资源,把云南铜业完全纳入国家军事战略资源的范畴。国民政府在云南采取积极措施,使云南军需铜材产量大幅提升,保证了抗战的铜材需求,有力支持了中国人民的抗日战争。云南铜业的生产规模和技术也在抗战期间得到极大提升,加快了云南矿业现代化发展步伐。     

Innovations, Competitiveness and Local Embeddedness: A Study of Machinery Producers in Sweden

This paper is about technological relations and firm performance in the Swedish machinery industry. Taking its point of departure in the proliferating literature on the localized nature of learning and innovation processes, the paper sets out to answer three empirical questions: To what extent are firms integrated in localized production systems based on buyer-supplier relations? At what geographical level–local/regional, national or international–are the most important technological relations found? Is there a correlation between localized technological relations and the technological performance of firms? The results indicate that few firms display localized buyer-supplier relations. Rather, the industry is highly internationalized, with the most important customers and competitors located outside Sweden. In terms of technologically important relations, the domestic arena seems to be more important. The majority of the most important technological relations link the machinery producers to other actors in Sweden. Three out of four firms may be classified as predominantly local/regional or national in their technological relations, or technology profile. This survey therefore supports the notion that there exists both local/regional and national innovation systems. Finally, however, despite the fact that most firms are fairly locally embedded in their technology relations, there is no evidence that such embeddedness shows up as superior firm performance, in terms of technology level or innovative capacity.     

中国旅游研究30年：成就、挑战与使命

伴随着改革开放和旅游业的发展,中国旅游研究经历了学科从无到有,规模从小到大不寻常的30年,旅游业发展面临新一轮转型升级,旅游研究进入了关键的转型期。对现有材料梳理发现,目前的旅游研究还存在团队研发平台较少、创新资源投入欠缺、国际化发展不够、理论核心不强、研发动力不足、理论滞后于实践、学科地位未被充分认可等问题。未来的旅游研究应整合旅游研究学界资源、加强基础研究、构建合作平台、推进国际化进程、探索创新研究模式,努力建设并提高学科地位,构建国家旅游研究新体系、新格局。     

Do Manufacturing Firms Profit from Intraregional Innovation Linkages? An Empirical Based Answer

Nowadays, inter-firm linkages in the form of regional networks are seen as growth-promoting and important prerequisites for successful innovation activities in firms. Beginning with this hypothesis, the paper sets out to answer the question, whether manufacturing businesses with strong intraregional ties are more successful with respect to growth rates and innovative activities than those firms with little connection to their region. From a survey carried out in 10 European regions, the results verify that in spite of numerous network relationships on the national and international level small businesses are most likely to cooperate with others in their vicinity. In addition, the more knowledge-intensive innovation activities of businesses are, the more important is the relevance of spatial proximity in particular and networking in general.     

Regional Competitiveness in Central European Countries: In Search of a Useful Conceptual Framework

The goal of this discussion paper is to examine the relevance of selected influential theoretical and conceptual approaches to regional competitiveness for specific geographical and institutional contexts of Central European (CE) regions. We argue that strategic documents and policies (both nation- and region-wide) in CE countries are based on un-critical applications of a few popular concepts of competitiveness that were originally proposed and mainly applied in Western European and US regions. Existing empirical evidence documents a strong role of exogenous factors of competitiveness in CE regions, the in-house character of firm innovations and weak demand for innovations, and other impediments of R&D collaboration. We suggest that these (and other factors) limit the applicability of concepts such as regional innovation systems and Porterian clusters in the context of many CE regions. On the other hand, we argue that some other concepts such as the global production networks perspective or related variety and economic complexity can provide some relevant and inspiring frameworks for analysing regional competitiveness in CE countries.     

Globalization,Modes of Innovation and Regional Knowledge Diffusion Infrastructures

Firms increasingly transcend the boundaries of regional innovation systems in their search for technology and complementary capabilities, and only rarely can they build their knowledge bases on science system output alone. Whereas the former decouple firms from regional user–producer networks, the latter raises important questions concerning the role of local science and education system actors in industrial development. By applying the “modes of innovation” concept on a Norwegian region, this paper discusses how science and education institutions can respond to the challenges of knowledge base complexity and globalization. It concludes that such institutions may play a vital role in supporting knowledge-based development, albeit different from that of academic knowledge exploration followed by linear technology transfer to industry.     

Troublemaker or peacemaker? Andreas Papandreou,the Euromissile Crisis,and the policy of peace, 1981–86

The article sheds light on a neglected piece of the Euromissile Crisis puzzle, namely Greece’s policy of peace. The article examines the interaction of Andreas Papandreou’s socialist government’s foreign policy, developments in the country’s political culture and national frames of reference, and the unfolding drama of the nuclear crisis of the 1980s. While subscribing to an international cause, papandreou framed the policy of peace in ardent nationalist terms that involved renegotiation of the american bases on greek soil, relations with nato, balkan regional schemes for nuclear-weapons-free zones, and international initiatives with the third world.     

Restructuring the Post-Cold War World Economy: Perspectives and a Prognosis

In exploring the consequences of changes in Eastern Europe for Western Europe, the Third World and the global economic order, this article examines the need for economic management which is more solidly based on the new theory of international trade, and which extends beyond the national level. The rapidly deteriorating situation in Eastern Europe and the Gulf crisis both form valuable examples of the problems and opportunities ahead. There is a clear move towards the formation of regional blocs such as the European Community, the intention of which is to strengthen the industrial countries against the uncertainties and risks involved in the current reshaping of the world order by multipolarity, as well as in the growing nationalist tensions and movements for national independence. This article will argue that bloc formation is bound to either further marginalize the majority of developing countries, or increase their dependence on the few regional centres that are emerging.     

Different Modes of Innovation and the Challenge of Connecting Universities and Industry: Case Studies of Two Regional Industries in Norway

The paper argues that no single formula exists for how universities can stimulate innovation activity and industrial development in a particular region. The type of university–industry cooperation must be fined-tuned according to the knowledge base of the university and to the dominant mode of innovation in the regional industry. This article discusses two different modes of innovation: science, technology, innovation (STI) and doing, using, interacting (DUI). The unit of analysis is innovation and cooperation with universities in two regional industries in Norway, which are dominated by the two modes of innovation: STI (marine biotechnology in Tromsø) and DUI (oil and gas equipment suppliers in Agder). The empirical analyses demonstrate the different roles that universities play in these two regional industries. The University of Tromsø is the main organization behind the development of the marine biotechnology industry in Tromsø and is an important knowledge node and source of biotechnology spin-offs. Equipment suppliers in Agder have become world leaders in some niches, almost without research cooperation with universities. A general lesson is that the dominant mode of innovation in a regional industry makes a difference to the role universities can play in stimulating the development of the industry.     

Spatial cooperation patterns and their impact on innovation outcomes: lessons from firms in a low-technology region

This paper examines cooperation patterns of firms in the German low-technology region of Lower Bavaria. Particular emphasis is placed on the interplay among the spatial scale of cooperation, the form of cooperation and the type of innovation. Generic results show that overall, firms with a spatially more diverse set of cooperation linkages have a higher likelihood of innovating. However, the innovation outcomes differ depending on the spatial scale of cooperation. While cooperation with regional partners positively correlates with low-threshold innovations, cooperation with spatially distant partners positively correlates with product innovations. Surprisingly, it is application-oriented cooperation that channels the relation in both cases. The findings support the view that innovation of firms in low-technology regions is driven by ‘development’ rather than ‘research’. It also suggests that innovation-driven growth may even be possible in regions with limited values on the traditional innovation-supporting factors.     

The nation in the region: flamenco and canzone napoletana as national icons in modern Spain and Italy (1880–1922)

Although the relationship between music and nationalism has been at the centre of recent cross‐disciplinary research, many areas remain unexplored. Among them are forms of ‘national music’ that nest overlapping identities, functioning simultaneously as vehicles of regional, ethnic, urban, global and diasporic belongings. This article focuses on the national dimension of these multilevel identities, concentrating on the swings and transmigrations between the national and the regional. It compares two Mediterranean traditions which, particularly between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have served as multilevel identifiers of national and regional belongings: flamenco and canzone napoletana (Neapolitan song). I argue that, besides geographically bounded identities, both genres were constructed as ‘national’ primarily abroad, rather than in their home countries, thus contributing to a theory of the ‘international’ dimension of ‘national’ music. In the case of flamenco, I focus on the irradiation centre of the time, Paris, although the modern notion of musical Spanishness was first associated with national identity in Russia. The canzone consolidated its international position mostly through the Italian diaspora, achieving a much wider reach than is ordinarily thought, both nationally and globally.