Knowledge Production in European Regions: The Impact of Regional Strategies and Regionalization on Innovation

Abstract

In the last 15 years, the regional scale was used to implement innovation strategies in European Union. Departing from the discussion of the relevance of innovation policy at the regional level, the article benefits from the knowledge production function framework to estimate patterns considering 175 European regions. It is intended to understand whether regional innovation strategies developed and applied between 1994 and 2001 were successful at an aggregated level in contributing for knowledge creation measured in terms of patents and high technology patents. The results underline the relevance of private R&D expenditure and medium and high technology employment to increase patent numbers. The models suggest also that administrative regionalization may be important to regional innovation and that the creation and implementation of a regional strategy have a positive contribution for high tech innovation.

Acknowledgement

Hugo Pinto gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT grant ref. SFRH/BD/35887/2007).

Notes

SPSS 14.0 was used to estimate the model. The method was Enter. The model was tested regarding multi-collinearity (VIF and tolerance). The adequability of the model was confirmed (F-test), and the t-tests for each explanatory variable also suggested the same understanding of p-values. The residuals did not show evidences of autocorrelation or non-normal distribution.