Evolution of knowledge bases in European regions: searching for spatial regularities and links with innovation performance

ABSTRACT

This paper aims at a greater comprehension of the distribution of differentiated knowledge bases and their association with innovation performance. Drawing on evolutionary economic geography, we applied a combinatorial and dynamic view on knowledge bases. The main contribution is the examination of changes and transformations of knowledge bases over time in particular group of regions in Europe and links with innovation performance. Our study revealed systematic regularities between regions with different innovation performance and their knowledge bases. With decreasing regional innovation performance the volatility of knowledge bases over time increases. Innovation leaders evinced stability over time and the most balanced composition of knowledge bases (compared with Central and Eastern Europe regions). Western European countries and regions exhibit the most balanced structure of knowledge bases. An important complementarity and synergy has been identified in the close relatedness of the symbolic knowledge base to the analytical knowledge base. The highest intensity of SME cooperation takes place in regions with a strong analytical base and in regions with the most balanced mix among all three bases (particularly in the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium. Underperforming in innovation show a balanced mix of synthetic and symbolic knowledge bases.

KEYWORDS:

• Differentiated knowledge bases
• innovation performance
• spatial regularities
• European regions

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the editor and reviewers for their valuable feedback. I am very grateful to Jiří Blažek for his encouragement and inspiration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Viktor Květoň http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8339-0811

Notes

1 Delineation of CEE is based on https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=303 and delineation of Southern Europe follows EC studies (http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/economic_paper/2013/ecp511_en.htm) and includes Cyprus, Croatia and Malta. The other European countries are classed as Western Europe.

2 We follow the typology of regions developed in Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2016 where:

• Innovation Leaders are all regions with a relative performance more than 20% above the EU average in 2017;

• Strong Innovators are all regions with a relative performance between 90% and 120% of the EU average in 2017;

• Moderate Innovators are all regions with a relative performance between 50% and 90% of the EU average in 2017;

• Modest Innovators are all regions with a relative performance below 50% of the EU average in 2017.

3 European Commission – Regional innovation Scoreboard (http://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/innovation/facts-figures/regional_cs).

Additional information

Funding

Financial support of Grant Agency of The Czech Republic (Grantová Agentura České Republiky) [Grant number 17-06621S] is greatly acknowledged. This work has been also supported by Charles University Research Centre program UNCE/HUM/018 (Univerzita Karlova v Praze).