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Overview
In the most comprehensive and detailed way yet attempted, Regional innovation systems introduces a newly developed theoretical and empirical construct of widespread interest to those concerned with industrial development on a regional scale. Innovation is a key weapon in today's global economic competition. In the past, unitary or federal states supported innovation through arm's length science and technology policies. Now, as national economies and national "champion" firms come more and more under the tutelage of supranational political and economic forces this is changing. Change in the organization of production, policies and business location also mean the regional level has grown in importance as a source of innovation support for business. This is especially so where regional business is predominantly small-firm in nature or linked in supply chains to larger enterprises. Some regional administrations are well equipped to perform this function, others less so. Learning gains may be captured by regional administrations, intermediaries and firms confronted with the analysis and accounts presented in this volume.Set within a broadly evolutionary economics perspective, accounts are given of the systems interactions occurring between firms and the innovation support infrastructure. Cases are drawn worldwide from Asia, North America and Europe. They include "high road" instances such as Baden-Wurttemberg, Brabant, California and Singapore, and reconversion regions which emphasize "upstream" innovation such as Quebec and Tampere-Pirkanmaa (Finland) with close university--industry links or "downstream" near-market innovation such as Ontario or Catalonia. Some have quite "dirigiste" systems, as with Singapore and Midi-Pyrenees, others are more localist, as in the cases of Tohoku (Japan) or Tuscany. Policy implications of the analyses offered and variation explored are set in a context where, typically, regional administrations have low access to the full scale of innovation policy instruments, have little experience of best practice, and operate piecemeal rather than systemic policy portfolios in consequence.
Students and researchers will welcome this comprehensive treatment of regional innovation systems, a key concept in understanding regional and industrial development, which is a topic widely studied by geographers, economists and planners.
Synopsis
Since the first edition of this book in 1995, there has been a worldwide innovation-led economic boom and a subsequent slump, meaning enormous change has also occurred at the level of regional economies. The new edition registers this change and provides an interesting test of the robustness of the original arguments in the book. Not least, more industrial policy making is influenced by the RIS analysis, and many national and regional governments have adopted RIS approaches, along with related instruments like promotion of industry clusters, academic entrepreneurship, regional venture capital and science-led development strategies.