The role of intermediate structures and regional context for the evolution of knowledge networks and structural change

The importance of knowledge - more in particular of its creation and diffusion - for (regional) economic development is widely acknowledged. Knowledge is one of the most important sources of economic development. With an evolutionary perspective, the process of knowledge diffusion can be investigated as an emergent process of the formation of networks in a complex context. The concept of the Regional Innovation System (RIS) offers a possible framework to connect the generation and diffusion of knowledge with regional economic growth. For regional economic development to benefit from the advantages of proximity requires the continuous renewal of networks and interactive learning. Human action is a learning process, susceptible to the influences of time, place and human contacts. In the process of diffusion it is necessary to give more attention to the specific function of the 'nodes' in networks. These nodes can be distinguished in various kinds of 'sources' of knowledge (like universities, laboratories of large corporations, or small innovative firms) and 'destinations' (firms or other organisations). Quite often there are intermediate persons or structures acting in the transmission process between sources and destinations. These can influence the content and the configuration of the 'message', the transferred knowledge. Personal and profit motives, but also structural properties like distance and culture (language, religion) influence both the process and the outcome. The emergence of these networks and the intermediate structures can be viewed as an evolutionary process. The complexity of the multiplicity of relations is related to those contextual conditions of geographical, cultural and organisational proximity that influence both the efficiency and the effectiveness of knowledge transfers. Governments have only a limited power to influence this evolutionary process.