Theoretical and Practical Approaches of Innovation at Regional Level

During the last period, innovation represented the core topic of a wide number of studies and analyses due to the potential impact it could have on the development level of a country or a region. This aspect is relatively easy to explain: innovation represents an important source of regional/national competitiveness, a modern factor of growth and economic resilience, but also the fundamental objective of the current programming period and of the Europe 2020 Strategy. According to theory, innovation is a process that takes place predominantly at micro-economic level. Still, its approach at regional level gains increasingly more room within economic approaches starting from the premise that innovative performances of a company depend directly and to a large share on the endogenous local potential, but also on a combination of factors of influence, determined by the specifics and conditions of the area. The study intends to analyse from the theoretical and practical viewpoint the role of the innovation process within economic development and growth at regional and national level.