An analysis of the key role of human and technological development in the smart specialization of smart European regions

ABSTRACT

The Europe 2020 development strategy prioritizes the so-called Smart Regions, reflecting the European Commission's commitment to geographical ‘specialization.’ Accordingly, the European regions have developed innovation strategies for smart specialization. A key element in these development strategies is the technological factor, which is clearly influenced by the level of human development in the region. This article analyses the convergence between citizens’ capacities and technological development in a region. Specifically, we analyse 129 NUTS 2 regions in Europe, using official data provided by Eurostat. To measure human development, this article proposes a Smart Human Index based on a synthetic indicator incorporating three dimensions; in addition, we use two dimensions to construct an indicator of regional technological development. The results show that a region's technological capacity clearly depends on its inhabitants’ degree of formal education, while their use of technologies depends on the citizens’ degree of social openness and cultural level.

KEYWORDS:

• Smart regions
• smart specialization
• human capital
• technological development
• Europe
• NUTS 2

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Domingo Nevado Peña is a professor of Financial Economics and Accounting at Castilla-La Mancha University and EOI teacher of the Master’s in Finance and Knowledge Management. He also participates in seminars, Master’s courses and consultancies developed for organisations such as CISSPRAXIS, EOI, Learning Resources Associates (LRA), Agnes, DOPP. Consultants Inc. and BIC in Ciudad Real. He has received several awards for his work on auditing, management control and intellectual capital among other topics. He is the author of more than 20 books, including “Intellectual capital: an assessment and measurement (2002)”, “Manage and control the full value of your company (2006)”, “The development or the 21st century organisations”, “Ethics, social responsibility, diversity management and change management (2007)”, "Managing the binomial yield-productivity. Economic and financial role, process management, quality management and balanced scorecard (2008)” and “Efficient production processes (2008)”.

Víctor R. López has a PhD in Econometrics (2002) and conducts research at Castilla-La Mancha University. His fields of research are Intellectual Capital Measurement, Regional Economy and Models Applied to Management. He is the author of several working papers, books and documents on these topics. He has taught international courses on Intellectual Capital and has been awarded several research prizes. Further information available at: http://victorraullopez.blogspot.com/

José Luis Alfaro is an Associate Professor of Statistics at Castilla-La Mancha University. He completed his PhD. in Applied Economics at the same University in 2005. His research interests are in the areas of intellectual capital measurement, agrarian economics and multivariate quality control. He is member of SEIO (Sociedad Española de Estadística e Investigación Operativa) and a member of IAES (Internacional Atlantic Economic Society). José Luis Alfaro is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]