A comparative study on innovation in European cities by means of multicriteria analysis

This paper addresses the issue of innovative behaviour of firms in an urban European context. It aims to identify key factors for innovation at the local level, based on micro survey information from firms. In seeking for prominent explanatory variables for entrepreneurial innovation in various classes of European cities, a particular multivariate method - i.e., Regime analysis - is employed. This special type of multicriteria method appears to be a fruitful tool for comparative analysis and generates a wide range of interesting empirical results on innovation factors in European cities.