Going beyond the line of sight: institutional entrepreneurship and system agency in regional path creation

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the scope for system-level agency in new path creation. We identify the roles and challenges for state-led path creation and illustrate them through a case study of a novel and ongoing set of institutional entrepreneurship and system-building activities in the Galicia region of Spain, looking at the practices, relational processes, multilevel lobbying and regulatory change associated with an ambitious initiative to grow a new industry around uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) through anchoring knowledge and legitimacy-building.

KEYWORDS:

• path creation
• peripheral regions
• legitimacy
• anchoring
• institutional entrepreneurship
• public procurement

KEYWORDS:

• path creation
• peripheral regions
• legitimacy
• anchoring
• institutional entrepreneurship
• public procurement

JEL:

• O25

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the special issue editors and three anonymous referees for their truly helpful suggestions. Special thanks to Diego Moñux for bringing the case to our attention as well as all the interviewees for their time. The authors remain solely responsible for any errors contained in the paper.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The regional context is drawn from https://www.ige.eu, http://www.galicia.es/en/economia; and https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/regional-innovation-monitor/base-profile/galicia.

2. Source: https://www.civiluavsinitiative.com/.

3. A plethora of terms describe different kinds of uncrewed or optionally crewed air, land or maritime craft, though ‘drone’ tends to be used as a catch-all. In this paper we use drone or UAV because this is the terminology adopted in the case we examine.

4. Such as the mobilization of local firms and innovation benefits felt even by unsuccessful bidders (Sánchez-Carreira et al., 2019).

5. These procurements themselves were done by INTA through PPI methods, with five ‘lots’ covering control room systems, safety and control systems, meteorological systems, hardware, software and communications systems.

6. See https://www.civiluavsinitiative.com/inversion/apoyo-publico/.

7. Strategic partnership agreements were signed with two winning bidders, Babcock and Indra. Projects included a pilotless helicopter for coordination purposes in fire-fighting, an optionally piloted aircraft to conduct a wide range of missions; an optionally pilotless sea vessel for maritime missions; UAV systems for the automated inspection of infrastructure; the development of software and algorithms for drone operations; and a control centre to process real-time image and video transmissions from vehicles. A third PCP contract was later awarded to a Boeing-led consortium to develop technological solutions and infrastructure for interoperability.

8. Although clearly this will also be important in the case of UAVs. Interestingly, Boucher (2015) argues that attempts in Europe to legitimate commercial/civil UAV uses tend to downplay the military origins and associations of UAVs, but in the Galician case the involvement of the defence S&T agency INTA has been seen as a positive element of wider legitimacy-building for the region, at least so far.

 

Additional information

Funding

Elvira Uyarra acknowledges support from the Regional Studies Association Fellowship Grants [grant number FeRSA Grant R124830].