Knowledge economy and regional policies: considerations on the Italian case

On the basis of recent empirical evidence, the first part of this paper contends that a positive relationship between knowledge investment and regional economic growth cannot be taken for granted. Accordingly, regional policies based on purely quantitative targets of R&D expenditures and educational attainments could be ineffective. To avoid that, they should be part of a more systemic framework focussed upon the linkages among universities, research centres and business firms. In the second part, the paper analyses how the current frameworks of Italian regional policies are dealing with the issues of R&D, innovation and higher education and, above all, their inter-relationships. In particular, by examining three Regional Operating Programmes financed under the European Regional Development Fund 2007-2013, the policy approaches that emerge are quite differentiated and, in some cases, not sufficiently centred on the weak linkages between the actors of the regional innovation systems.