The notion of path dependent regional industrial development has recently received increasing attention in economic geography, innovation studies and related fields. A core idea is that pre-existing industrial and institutional structures constitute the regional environment in which current...

The literature on universities’ contributions to regional development is broad and diverse. A precise understanding of how regions can potentially draw advantages from various university activities and the role of public policy institutions (imperatives and incentives) in promoting such...

The aim of this article is to examine conceptually and empirically how innovative firms combine knowledge (1) provided by different sources, (2) accessed at different spatial scales, and (3) acquired through different channels. We add to the conceptual debate by contrasting and synthesizing the...

Regional innovation strategies rank on the top of public policy agendas today. There is a widespread consensus in both academic and policy circles that standardised “best practice” innovation policy models suffer from severe limitations and major shortcomings. The recent literature is...

The past two decades have witnessed an ever-growing scholarly interest in regional clusters. The focus of research has mainly been on why clusters exist and what characteristics “functioning” clusters hold. Although the interest in more dynamic views on clusters is not new, in recent years,...

This paper seeks to enhance our understanding of critical preconditions and factors that facilitate the rise and development of new industrial paths in peripheral regional economies. Current conceptualizations of regional path creation are largely based on experiences from core regions and fail...

The aim of this working paper is to contribute to the debate on how to identify regions with less developed research and innovation systems. We look at both conceptual and empirical approaches that figure prominently in scholarly work on regional innovation systems. Based on a critical review...