IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jknowl/v5y2014i1p156-180.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Research Driven Clusters at the Heart of (Trans-)Regional Learning and Priority-Setting Processes

Author

Listed:
  • Günter Clar
  • Björn Sautter

Abstract

Smart Specialisation has become the catchword for innovation policy approaches to optimally leverage regional dynamism in knowledge creation and application, and thus achieving comparative advantages in a globalised knowledge economy. It can support innovation policies putting the grand societal challenges of the twenty-first century high on the political agenda by intelligently investing the available resources in harnessing unique regional assets (as well as their inter-regional combinations), which were identified and capitalised on by ‘entrepreneurial discovery’ processes. This paper argues that research driven clusters as local nodes of global knowledge flows and as ‘microcosms’ in a complex world of cross-cutting regional and sector innovation systems, provide promising ‘targets’ for strategic policy support fostering smart specialisation. By being integrated in global value chains, and at the same time embedded in their regional innovation systems, higher-order learning and priority-setting processes of (quadruple helix) cluster stakeholders can lead to increased return on public and private investments within and across regions: they enable the application of technological know-how for innovative solutions to address global challenges, and thus help optimise the application of ‘localised’ knowledge capabilities for regional prosperity. Our case study—MicroTEC Südwest, a German “Spitzen” cluster in the top-ranking, ‘associational’ innovation system of Baden-Württemberg—spans an area of more than five million inhabitants, comparable in size with some countries in Europe. With this, we can exemplify elements of promising Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) outlining the participatory processes implemented to develop better-informed outward-looking (across sectors, borders, etc.), and more forward-looking strategies for evidence-based priority-setting and focusing investments. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Günter Clar & Björn Sautter, 2014. "Research Driven Clusters at the Heart of (Trans-)Regional Learning and Priority-Setting Processes," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 5(1), pages 156-180, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:5:y:2014:i:1:p:156-180
    DOI: 10.1007/s13132-014-0180-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s13132-014-0180-0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13132-014-0180-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Etzkowitz, Henry & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2000. "The dynamics of innovation: from National Systems and "Mode 2" to a Triple Helix of university-industry-government relations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 109-123, February.
    2. Asheim, Bjorn T & Isaksen, Arne, 2002. "Regional Innovation Systems: The Integration of Local 'Sticky' and Global 'Ubiquitous' Knowledge," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 77-86, January.
    3. Anne Ter Wal & Ron Boschma, 2011. "Co-evolution of Firms, Industries and Networks in Space," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(7), pages 919-933.
    4. Loet Leydesdorff, 2012. "The Triple Helix, Quadruple Helix, …, and an N-Tuple of Helices: Explanatory Models for Analyzing the Knowledge-Based Economy?," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 3(1), pages 25-35, March.
    5. Udo Staber & Bj�rn Sautter, 2011. "Who Are We, and Do We Need to Change? Cluster Identity and Life Cycle," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(10), pages 1349-1361, November.
    6. Cooke, Philip, 2001. "Regional Innovation Systems, Clusters, and the Knowledge Economy," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 10(4), pages 945-974, December.
    7. Koen Frenken & Frank Van Oort & Thijs Verburg, 2007. "Related Variety, Unrelated Variety and Regional Economic Growth," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 685-697.
    8. Maskell, Peter & Malmberg, Anders, 1999. "Localised Learning and Industrial Competitiveness," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 23(2), pages 167-185, March.
    9. Ann Markusen, 1996. "Sticky Places in Slippery Space: A Typology of Industrial Districts," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 72(3), pages 293-313, July.
    10. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2003. "Deconstructing clusters: chaotic concept or policy panacea?," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 5-35, January.
    11. Robert Hassink, 2005. "How to unlock regional economies from path dependency? From learning region to learning cluster," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 521-535, June.
    12. Ron Boschma, 2005. "Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 61-74.
    13. Todtling, Franz & Trippl, Michaela, 2005. "One size fits all?: Towards a differentiated regional innovation policy approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1203-1219, October.
    14. Philip Cooke & Loet Leydesdorff, 2006. "Regional Development in the Knowledge-Based Economy: The Construction of Advantage," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 5-15, January.
    15. Kevin Morgan, 1997. "The Learning Region: Institutions, Innovation and Regional Renewal," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 491-503.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Exley, G. & Hernandez, R.R. & Page, T. & Chipps, M. & Gambro, S. & Hersey, M. & Lake, R. & Zoannou, K.-S. & Armstrong, A., 2021. "Scientific and stakeholder evidence-based assessment: Ecosystem response to floating solar photovoltaics and implications for sustainability," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    2. Marcin Baron, 2021. "Open Innovation Capacity of the Polish Universities," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 12(1), pages 73-95, March.
    3. Björn Sautter, 2021. "Shaping Digital Ecosystems for Sustainable Production: Assessing the Policy Impact of the 2030 Vision for Industrie 4.0," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-16, November.
    4. Jawad Minhas & Stavros Sindakis, 2022. "Implications of Social Cohesion in Entrepreneurial Collaboration: a Systematic Literature Review," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(4), pages 2760-2791, December.
    5. Jawad Minhas & Stavros Sindakis, 2021. "Implications of Social Cohesion in Entrepreneurial Collaboration: a Conceptual Model and Research Propositions," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 12(4), pages 2016-2031, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grillitsch, Markus, 2014. "Institutional Change and Economic Evolution in Regions," Papers in Innovation Studies 2014/1, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    2. Markus Grillitsch, 2014. "Regional Transformation: Institutional Change and Economic Evolution in Regions," ERSA conference papers ersa14p1481, European Regional Science Association.
    3. Ron Boschma & Ron Martin, 2010. "The Aims and Scope of Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Lengyel, Balázs & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2015. "The Effects of FDI on Innovation Systems in Hungarian Regions: Where is the Synergy Generated?," MPRA Paper 73945, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Elvira Uyarra, 2010. "What is evolutionary about ‘regional systems of innovation’? Implications for regional policy," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 115-137, January.
    6. Caviggioli, F. & Colombelli, A. & De Marco, A. & Scellato, G. & Ughetto, E., 2023. "The impact of university patenting on the technological specialization of European regions: a technology-level analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    7. Raphael Suire & Jérome Vicente, 2009. "Why do some places succeed when others decline? A social interaction model of cluster viability," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 381-404, May.
    8. Simona Iammarino & Philip McCann, 2010. "The Relationship between Multinational Firms and Innovative Clusters," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Markus Grillitsch & Magnus Nilsson, 2017. "Firm performance in the periphery: on the relation between firm-internal knowledge and local knowledge spillovers," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(8), pages 1219-1231, August.
    10. Blanca L. Delgado-Márquez & Marcos García-Velasco, 2018. "Geographical Distribution of the European Knowledge Base Through the Lens of a Synthetic Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 477-496, April.
    11. Grillitsch, Markus & Trippl, Michaela, 2016. "Innovation Policies and New Regional Growth Paths: A place-based system failure framework," Papers in Innovation Studies 2016/26, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    12. Dimitris KALLIORAS & Nickolaos TZEREMES & Panayiotis TZEREMES & Maria ADAMAKOU, 2021. "Technological Change, Technological Catch-Up And Market Potential: Evidence From The Eu Regions," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(1), pages 135-151, June.
    13. Alberto Marzucchi & Davide Antonioli & Sandro Montresor, 2015. "Industry–research co-operation within and across regional boundaries. What does innovation policy add?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(3), pages 499-524, August.
    14. João Lopes & Mário Franco, 2019. "Review About Regional Development Networks: an Ecosystem Model Proposal," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 10(1), pages 275-297, March.
    15. Argentino Pessoa, 2014. "Agglomeration and regional growth policy: externalities versus comparative advantages," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 53(1), pages 1-27, August.
    16. Björn T. Asheim & Markus Grillitsch & Michaela Trippl, 2016. "Regional innovation systems: past – present – future," Chapters, in: Richard Shearmu & Christophe Carrincazeaux & David Doloreux (ed.), Handbook on the Geographies of Innovation, chapter 2, pages 45-62, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Sebastian Fastenrath & Boris Braun, 2018. "Lost in Transition? Directions for an Economic Geography of Urban Sustainability Transitions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-17, July.
    18. Isaksen , Arne & Trippl , Michaela, 2014. "Regional industrial path development in different regional innovation systems: A conceptual analysis," Papers in Innovation Studies 2014/17, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    19. Ben Vermeulen & Andreas Pyka, 2018. "The Role of Network Topology and the Spatial Distribution and Structure of Knowledge in Regional Innovation Policy: A Calibrated Agent-Based Model Study," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 773-808, October.
    20. Scaringella, Laurent & Radziwon, Agnieszka, 2018. "Innovation, entrepreneurial, knowledge, and business ecosystems: Old wine in new bottles?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 59-87.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:5:y:2014:i:1:p:156-180. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.