From Concept to Policy: Building Regional Innovation Systems in Follower Regions

Abstract

In the spirit of “The Lisbon strategy”, public policies are redirecting support from investment-driven policies to knowledge building as the main driver for competitiveness and innovation. This re-orientation poses different challenges to regions, and the regional innovation system (RIS) concept may be the central element, simultaneously goal and toolbox, for devising innovation-promotion policies. The RIS framework stresses the need to combine a systemic and inclusive view of innovation along with territorially embedded specificities. In this paper, we explore how to operationalize the concept of RIS in terms of innovation policy, arguing against a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Concentrating our analysis on follower regions, we bridge the concept of RIS with the structural deficiencies and challenges posing to this kind of regions, for which innovation policy should seek an adequate combination between science-push and demand-pull perspectives. We also address the importance of taking advantage of the catching-up status, building upon the research and development cost advantages and clustering around external initiatives as well as the correction of important constraints to the construction of a RIS.

Notes

In the sense that some social scientists such as Flyvbjerg (2001) used the Aristotelian concept of phronesis developed in the Nicomachean Ethics rediscovered by authors such as Foucault. In this context, a prudent approach means that virtues dealing with context, practice, experience, common sense, intuition and practical wisdom should also be taken into consideration.

A more precise typology of regions would be useful, but it corresponds to an exercise that is outside the scope of our analysis. For instance, Todtling and Trippl (2005), based on the European experiences, considered three kinds of regions: peripheral, old industrial and fragmented metropolitan regions.

Centro Tecnológico del Mar.

Centro Tecnológico Nacional de Conservación de Productos de Pesca.

Includes the Instituto de Investigaciones Agrobiológicas, the Instituto de Investigacións Mariñas and the Misión Biológica de Galicia.

Centro Tecnológico de la Automoción de Galicia.

Galicia Tecnoloxía e Deseño.

Instituto de Formación e Investigación Marqués de Valdecilla.