Aalborg Universitet
Knowledge Dynamics, Regional Development and Public Policy
Halkier, Henrik; Dahlström, Margareta; James, Laura; Manniche, Jesper; Olsen, Lise Smed
Publication date:
2010
Document Version
Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record
Link to publication from Aalborg University
Citation for published version (APA):
Halkier, H., Dahlström, M., James, L., Manniche, J., & Olsen, L. S. (Eds.) (2010). Knowledge Dynamics,
Regional Development and Public Policy. Aalborg: Institut for Historie, Internationale Studier og
Samfundsforhold, Aalborg Universitet.
General rights
Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners
and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.
? Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.
? You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain
? You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ?
Take down policy
If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at vbn@aub.aau.dk providing details, and we will remove access to
the work immediately and investigate your claim.
Downloaded from vbn.aau.dk on: november 30, 2015
Knowledge Dynamics,
Regional Development
and Public Policy
Edited by Henrik Halkier, Margareta Dahlström, Laura James,
Jesper Manniche & Lise Smed Olsen
© The authors 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978-87-92305-04-6
Published by
Department of History, International and Social Studies
Aalborg University
Fibigerstræde 2
9220 Aalborg Øst
Denmark
http://www.ihis.aau.dk/
Layout: Weltklasse reklame + pr
Published on behalf of the EURODITE project sponsored by the Sixth Framework Programme
of the European Union (Contract no. 006187).
Read more about EURODITE on the project website: http://www.eurodite.bham.ac.uk/
Contents
Part I: Introduction
1. Knowledge Dynamics as a Challenge to Public Policies ..................................................
4
EURODITE in brief .........................................................................................................
6
Glossary.........................................................................................................................
7
Part II: Knowledge Economy and Public Policies
2. Europe and the Knowledge Economy: Ambitious Aims ..................................................... 11
3. Knowledge and Policies for Regional Development: European Trends ............................ 17
Part III: Knowledge Dynamics and Regional Development
4. Public Policy and Sectoral Knowledge Dynamics .............................................................. 29
5. Knowledge and Regional Diversity: Quantitative Trends ................................................... 39
6. Micro-Dynamics of Knowledge – Firms, Organisations and their Territorial Shaping....... 47
7. Knowledge Anchoring in European Regions: Policy Implications .................................... 60
8. Types of Knowledge and Learning ...................................................................................... 78
9. Gender, Knowledge Dynamics and Regional Policy........................................................... 86
Part IV: Conclusions: Towards more Knowledge-Dynamic Policies
10. Executive Summary............................................................................................................ 101
Contributors .............................................................................................................................. 104
Suggested Further Readings ................................................................................................... 105
Appendix 1: EURODITE WP5 Reports Analysed in Chapter 7 ................................................ 112
Endnotes ................................................................................................................................... 113
1. Introduction: Knowledge Dynamics
as a Challenge to Public Policies
By Henrik Halkier, Margareta Dahlström, Laura James, Jesper Manniche and Lise Smed Olsen
To be a leader within the new knowledge economy is a widespread ambition in Europe. The
Lisbon strategy aimed to make EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based
economy in the world”, and the current Europe 2020 strategy is even more ambitious because
knowledge is seen as a key prerequisite not only for economic growth but also for social cohesion. Meanwhile, countless regions across Europe pursue knowledge-based initiatives in support
of clusters, innovative milieus, and triple-helix relations in order to claim their stake in an ever more
knowledge-intensive future.
Knowledge is at the top of the economic development agenda across Europe, even during
the global financial crisis. But ambitions require policies, and policies require intelligent information
in order to make a positive difference. This is where EURODITE can make a contribution. The fiveyear research project, sponsored by the EU’s sixth Framework Programme, has investigated how
knowledge is generated, developed and transferred within firms or organisations, and between
firms or organisations in their regional and wider contexts. Combining surveys, statistical analysis,
and, not least, an extensive series of case studies, new light has been thrown on
•
the importance of combining different types of knowledge, for instance scientific, organisational and cultural
•
the relationship between local and global knowledge interactions
•
the interaction of private and public knowledge resources
•
the role of sectors, regions and national institutions in shaping economic development
•
the importance of cross-sectoral knowledge interactions for driving innovation
•
what new policy approaches should be considered at European, national and regional scales
These are all issues in need of clarification because they have consequences for the development
of strategies promoting the knowledge economy. They are also important because many wellknown policy prescriptions have been inherited from a not-too-distant past where manufacturing,
agglomerations, and local synergies dominated the strategic horizon of economic development in
Europe.
This report is divided into four parts. This introduction ends with a brief overview of the
EURODITE research project and the way it has studied economically useful knowledge processes
across Europe. The second part contains two chapters which provide background and context by
•
charting the rise of knowledge as a key element in economic development, both at the European level and in regions across Europe (Chapter 2)
•
surveying key patterns and trends in policies for regional development throughout the EU in
order to capture their knowledge implications (Chapter 3)
The third and main part of the report contains six chapters based on research undertaken as part
4
of the EURODITE project. Most of the chapters are primarily based on case studies of knowledge
dynamics across Europe in and between seven important sectors of economic activity: automotive, biotechnology, food, ICT, knowledge intensive business services, new media, and tourism.
Additional material includes an innovative quantitative study of regional knowledge configurations,
as well as work on gender aspects of the knowledge economy, regional development and public
policy. Each of the chapters adopts a different perspective on the studies of knowledge processes
undertaken by EURODITE researchers in order to identify their policy implications:
•
policies that make a difference in various sectors of economic activity (Chapter 4)
•
a quantitative analysis of knowledge resources and dynamics in European regions (Chapter 5)
•
the increasing complexity of knowledge production within global value chains (Chapter 6)
•
the way that regions can access and use external knowledge (Chapter 7)
•
the growing importance of new and different types and uses of knowledge (Chapter 8)
•
the role of gender in the knowledge economy (Chapter 9)
All the chapters in this section present a list of policy challenges that have been identified as part
of EURODITE research. These challenges have to be addressed in order to promote further development of the knowledge economy in Europe. In the fourth part of the report we draw together
the key findings from the report into a conclusion.
This document has been written primarily for practitioners and policy-makers, and therefore references are only given in connection with direct quotes and sources of tables and graphs.
A list of suggested further readings can be found at the back of the report, and an extended and
fully-referenced version aimed at an academic audience will be published later.
The editors would like to thank our sponsors in the Sixth Framework Programme, and the
project coordinators at Birmingham University who entrusted us with a task that turned out to be
more challenging – and rewarding – than any of us had imagined. Special thanks go to all the
EURODITE research teams across Europe upon whose diligence and ingenuity this report builds,
and to the policy practitioners who volunteered to comment on a draft version of the report. As
ever, errors of interpretation rest with the authors.
Aalborg, Stockholm, London and Nexø – April 2010
5
EURODITE in brief
The objective of the EURODITE project is to investigate regional trajectories to the knowledge
economy by showing how knowledge is generated, developed and transferred within and among
firms or organisations and their regional contexts. EURODITE is a multidisciplinary project including researchers from economic geography, organisational theory, economics, management
theory, business administration, sociology and other disciplines. This means that from a theoretical and conceptual point of view, the project draws from a multitude of academic disciplines and
sources.
In the EURODITE project and in this report, knowledge is understood as a process where
certain organisational competences are used to acquire new, economically useful knowledge.
Knowledge dynamics is a key concept in the project. Knowledge dynamics are interactions of individual actors or groups of actors that learn, search for, or diffuse new knowledge, and apply old
and new knowledge in the economy. This includes many activities like: employment of knowledge
workers; education; training; consulting; in- and out-sourcing. A result of knowledge dynamics
may be an innovation in, for instance, a new or improved product (good or service), organisation
or pro-cess
In the empirical case studies of EURODITE, research into knowledge dynamics has been
conducted. The empirical case studies are based on the following building blocks: regions, sectors, territorial knowledge dynamics and firm-level knowledge dynamics. Better understanding of
the way that knowledge is developed within various sectors and types of businesses, how it is
transferred, and the role of regional contexts, such as public actors, higher education institutions
and networks of firms suggest ways that policies may be developed and used to facilitate knowledge dynamics. This in turn can contribute to increased regional competitiveness.
In EURODITE 22 regions in 13 countries have been studied. The reason for starting from a
region is that the regional level has been considered crucial in the development of a more competitive Europe. However, in EURODITE it is assumed that knowledge dynamics are not restricted
to bounded territories such as administrative regions. Instead, the assumption is that knowledge
interactions stretch across administrative borders. Nonetheless, the regional context appears to
play a role in knowledge interactions, for instance, in discussion of policies, thus regions are the
starting point for the empirical case studies.
Seven strategic sectors formed the basis for the selection of empirical case studies in
EURODITE:
6
•
Automotives
•
Biotechnology
•
New media
•
Food and drink
•
Information and communication technologies (ICT)
•
Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS)
•
Tourism
The sectors include high-, medium- and low-tech companies. An assumption here was that the
sectors would represent different kinds of knowledge dynamics in both goods and service production. However, it is important to stress that the predefined sectors were only meant as a basis for
the empirical case study, and we see that many innovations and knowledge interactions tend to
occur across sectors.
Key concepts and glossary
We use the term territorial knowledge dynamics (TKDs) to describe spatial patterns of knowledge
dynamics because, although we have used particular regions as starting points for our analysis,
this does not mean that the whole region is involved in any given TKD. Rather it indicates that
a particular set of knowledge dynamics are of importance for the development of a particular
region. Thus, in our case studies we recognise that all of the significant knowledge interactions are
unlikely to be contained within the borders of the region, but that at least some significant relations
have occurred there, in interaction with other territories, contiguous or more remote. Key actors
may include firms, higher education institutions, chambers of commerce and local and regional
authorities. TKDs are seen as multiscalar and may include important interactions at great distances. Understanding territorial knowledge dynamics requires the probing of issues such as the role
of proximity and distance in terms of knowledge interactions and the mobility of different actors
and individuals. Special attention is paid to the way that various types of policies affect knowledge
dynamics. These policies may stem from the supranational, national, regional or local levels, but it
is the way that the policies are realised at the regional level that is in focus.
While the territorial knowledge dynamics provide the context, the study of firm-level knowledge dynamics contributes greater depth and more details about knowledge dynamics. Firm-level
knowledge dynamics concern the way that knowledge is developed and transferred at a micro
level: within a firm or an organisation, or within a network of firms or organisations. The research
framework uses a knowledge biography approach in investigating – or more precisely, tracing –
knowledge dynamics starting from a change in product, process or organisation. Key events of
knowledge interaction are identified in an attempt to understand the processes and the role of
different actors aiming at ‘telling the story’ of the change from idea to implementation.
Knowledge geography
Multiscalar: Interaction involving several different geographical levels.
Regional knowledge configuration: indicates different types of regional economies, based on data
collection and statistical analysis across European regions. The configurations represent different
combinations of industrial structures and scientific, technological and labour force
knowledge bases.
Knowledge types
Analytical knowledge: research-based knowledge primarily developed through scientific
exploration.
7
Synthetic knowledge: a result of a secondary-stage combination of analytical and (perhaps) of
symbolic knowledge. For instance, engineering knowledge is said to be synthetic because it
derives from application as well as from original (scientific) research.
Symbolic knowledge: knowledge about representation; for example, the ‘styling’ of a product,
organisation or process in a way that may convey an image that appeals to certain consumers.
Codified knowledge: knowledge which can be represented in writing or another kind of digital or
analogue format. Codified knowledge can be transmitted relatively easily to others.
Tacit knowledge: knowledge which largely comes from practice and is embodied in people. It is
articulated through practical skills and cannot be reduced to numbers, graphs, maps, diagrams,
texts, etc.
Knowledge phases
The development of knowledge rarely follows simple linear routes through research over testing
and to commercial use. However, three main strategies are usually involved, sometimes
repeatedly:
Exploration: often described as the first step in a knowledge chain. This phase is characterised by
the action of searching for new knowledge.
Examination: a testing phase where the veracity and applicability of the knowledge is considered.
Here an example is subjecting a potential new therapeutic method to clinical trials.
Exploitation: the ‘selling’ or ‘using’ phase where knowledge is put to use. This may be for financial
return but may also, as in academia, be for status, position or recognition.
Knowledge processes
Cumulative: when new knowledge builds upon, and depends directly on, existing knowledge within the same field or discipline. An example is a scientific discovery that adds to previous discovery.
Composite: when knowledge comprises and depends upon several disciplines or functional areas
of knowledge. These might include various sources of analytical or science-based knowledge.
8
Part II: Knowledge Economy and
Public Policies
This part of the report contains two chapters that provide background and context for the
research conducted within EURODITE. The chapters review previous research and also present
results of primary research undertaken as part of the project. First the rise of knowledge on the
policy agenda in Europe is charted, both at the EU level and in prominent regional development
strategies. Some of the key difficulties facing these strategies are highlighted (Chapter 2). The next
chapter presents an analytical framework for identifying differences between policies for regional
development and reports the findings of a survey of key policy patterns and trends throughout the
EU, with special emphasis on capturing their implications for knowledge processes (Chapter 3).
Taken together the chapters in this section provide the background for better understanding the
significance of the results of the research into knowledge dynamics that are presented afterwards
in Part III of the report.
9
10
2. Europe and the Knowledge Economy:
Ambitious Aims
By Henrik Halkier, Margareta Dahlström, Laura James, Alex Burfitt, Chris Collinge, Stewart
MacNeill, and Alison Parken
To be a leader within the new knowledge economy has become a widespread ambition in Europe,
both for the EU and for countless European regions. This section charts the rise of this ambition on the European political agenda, and provides a survey of key policies with implications for
knowledge economy development, both at the European level and in regions across Europe.
2.1. The rise of knowledge economy as a European policy ambition
The idea of the knowledge-based economy has been used within EU policy circles since the early
1990s. There are, however, several different ways of defining the concept. Some people refer to a
growth in hi-tech and knowledge intensive sectors of the economy such as biotechnology or ICT.
Others define the knowledge-based economy in terms of the proportion of highly-skilled knowledge workers. We might also see a shift towards a knowledge-based economy as the increase in
the importance and application of many different kinds of knowledge across all areas of economic
activity.
The Lisbon challenge
“…to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in
the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and
greater social cohesion”
EU Presidency (2000)
The first substantial reference to the knowledge-based economy in an EU publication was in the
1993 White Paper, Growth, Competitiveness, Employment. That document identified the need
to “exploit the competitive advantages associated with the gradual shift to a knowledge-based
economy”1. It also stressed the importance of knowledge in driving organisational and strategic improvements in firms’ performance. Technological advances and the ability to exchange
knowledge more easily (particularly driven by developments in ICT) were argued to have created
opportunities for innovation and, ultimately, wealth creation. These developments were set in the
context of increasing global competition which made innovation and the application of knowledge
even more important to ensure economic growth in Europe. In the 1990s the knowledge-based
economy was frequently included in discussions on innovation, competitiveness, and globalisation. However, it was not until a special conference of the European Council on employment in
Lisbon in 2000 that the idea of the knowledge-based economy became a widely used and highly
significant concept for the EU. This was captured in the now familiar statement in the Presi-
11
dency Conclusions that challenged Europe to embrace the knowledge economy. Recent political
guidelines to the incoming EU Commission confirm a commitment “to the radical transformation towards a knowledge-based society”.2 These guidelines also confirm the centrality of the
knowledge-based economy in the competitiveness-oriented Lisbon agenda which continues to
have important implications for key areas of European public policy. However, translating grand
statements of political ambition into concrete and concerted policy action can be difficult. This is
illustrated by a brief overview of key policy areas which are closely related to the development of
the knowledge economy. These key areas are: innovation and research, education and training,
gender equality, and regional development.
As knowledge is a central element in innovation processes, it is hardly surprising that European innovation policy documents have often argued for a strengthening of the knowledge-based
economy. The introduction to the 2009 review of Community innovation policies, for example,
repeats that “innovation is the precondition for the creation of a knowledge-based, low-carbon
economy”.3 Policies for R&D, innovation and competitiveness are seen as contributing to the
development of the knowledge-based economy. This has, for example resulted in:
•
the EU Innovation Scoreboard (currently found at www.proinno-europe.eu/) which sets out to
measure different knowledge activities and processes,
•
the target of devoting 3% of EU GDP to R&D, established at the Barcelona summit in 2002,
which further encouraged member states to quantify their knowledge activities,
•
the establishment of the European Research Area that helped establish the spatial nature of
the knowledge economy as something coherent and operational at the EU level, and
•
the expanded Framework Programmes which further reinforced the primacy of research and
knowledge creation, also through specific research programmes on the knowledge-based
economy (EURODITE itself is an example of this).
However, a review carried out by the European Commission on the nature of innovation policies
has found that direct interventions tend to focus mainly on forms of knowledge associated with
R&D and technologically-oriented science rather than service- or marketing-oriented through,
for example, the Framework Programmes. It found that “a lack of critical mass and coherence”
in innovation policies is a major challenge because “innovation support involves seven different
Commission services, various agencies and 20 committees with representatives from Member
States”.4
Similarly, the European Council’s 2009 statement on education and training emphasised
that “efficient investment in human capital through education and training systems is an essential
component of Europe’s strategy to deliver the high levels of sustainable, knowledge-based growth
and jobs that lie at the heart of the Lisbon strategy”.5 While this is very sensible from a long-term
economic development perspective, it also highlights the potential tension with other traditional
goals of the education system such as cultural cohesion, social equity, and personal fulfilment.
More than 10 years ago the European Commission introduced the principle of gender
mainstreaming, defined as “… mobilising all general policies and measures specifically for the
purpose of achieving equality by actively and openly taking account at the planning stage of their
possible effects on the respective situations of men and women”.6 Although a substantive policy
12
Knowledge gender gap
“Women are seriously under-represented in the business enterprise sector where
the EU’s R&D is most highly intensive; and in senior academic grades and influential positions where strategies are set, policies are developed, and the agenda for
the future is determined”
European Commission (2006)
domain in its own right, equal opportunities is also ‘transversal’ in the sense that gender affects
the distribution of rewards and resources in all areas of social and economic life. Consequently,
the 1999 EU Treaty of Amsterdam adopted a gender mainstreaming approach where action to
eliminate inequalities and promote gender equality for women and men is not restricted to specific
equality measures but must be integrated into all policy formation. However, outside of DG Employment and Social Affairs, policies that impact upon economic growth and labour markets
appear to be operating in a ‘gender-blind’ manner. The European Commission is increasingly
aware of the gender gap within occupations which generate knowledge,7 although this of course
also reflects a technology-oriented definition of knowledge that overlooks the importance of nontechnical forms of knowledge in innovation processes. However, women are significantly absent
from the places where decisions about the transition to a knowledge-based economy are taking
place, and as discussed, gender mainstreaming is insufficiently embedded in economic development organisation at the European level. This has obvious implications for the uneven development of an inclusive knowledge society and economy across Europe.
Regional development policies developed as part of the EU Structural Funds also reveal
the difficulties of translating political ambitions into concrete and concerted policy action promoting the knowledge economy in European regions. Starting out in the 1970s as a mechanism for
reimbursement of member state expenditure on regional development, the Structural Funds have
gradually developed into a series of regional development programmes in their own right. The
programmes are designed and implemented by a multi-level partnership stretching from the EU
Commission at the top via the national level down to regional and local actors throughout Europe.
Also EU regional policy has acquired a Lisbon dimension, with the European Council originally
insisting that that the Lisbon strategy would “strengthen regional cohesion in the European
Union”.8 Structural Funds activities should therefore take progress towards a more competitive
knowledge economy into account – a line of thinking that is still very much present in recent statements on European regional development strategies, including the current Europe 2020 vision. A
shift in EU regional policy had begun already in the 1990s, away from simply trying to redistribute
economic activity to peripheral regions and towards a focus on stimulating endogenous growth
and innovation. Therefore Lisbon to some extent just added further momentum to existing developments. Although the Lisbon re-levance of Structural Funds measures has increased significantly
outside more prosperous regions, progress in making European programmes more innovationoriented has been slower than originally anticipated. Firstly, such a shift of focus requires the active
support and involvement of public and private actors in the regions within a multi-level governance
13
framework. Secondly, the Regional Innovation System approach successfully developed in some
regions may have been difficult to transfer to regions elsewhere. Thirdly, the introduction of a 3%
R&D spending target moved the focus in direction of investment in ‘hard’ research infrastructure
rather than ‘soft’ organisational infrastructure aimed at creating ‘learning regions’.
Again, translating grand statements of important political ambition into concrete and
concerted policy action within a multi-level governance setting is clearly challenging. Coordination within the multi-level governance system of the EU has become recognised by the European
Commission as a major issue in its own right. Given the sectoral organisation of the EU as a
policy-making body – mirroring that of its member states – this is perhaps not surprising, but
consequently the need to make progress with regard to policy coordination is all the more pressing. This is crucial if Europe is to succeed in meeting the ambitions set out in the Lisbon strategy
of becoming “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world” and at
the same time maintain and improve social and territorial cohesion within the EU.
2.2. Knowledge economy as a policy ambition of European regions
The emphasis on knowledge as a driver of economic development is now an integrated part of
regional strategies for growth and prosperity across Europe. This is linked to the importance of
competitiveness as the central objective of regional policies, and new ways of understanding innovation as a non-linear process. From the 1980s onwards this has resulted in a string of knowledge-based approaches to regional development which have many features in common.
From the late 1970s, traditional conceptualisations of innovation as a linear process were
challenged. Systems of innovation approaches see learning and innovation as non-linear and
interactive processes which involve collaboration between firms and other institutions such as
universities, financial institutions, and development agencies. The concept was first applied at the
national level but was later applied to regions. Thus successful ‘regional innovation systems’ are
characte-rised by formal collaborations between firms and a strong institutional structure, including universities and research institutes.
Policy prescriptions that focus on building up both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ regional institutions
and networks have developed from the systems of innovation theory, for example the creation
of cluster organisations. Local effort might focus on developing the supply base, including skills,
education, innovation and communications. The institutional base, for example, development
agencies, business organisations and autonomous political organisations is also targeted. Under
the concept of learning region interactive innovation and, especially, social capital are also emphasised.
A discussion of regional policy related to innovation and learning would not be complete
without mention of the triple-helix approach. This argues that strong relationships between universities, firms and government agencies are crucial to encourage innovation within regions. The
role of universities is particularly emphasised. Triple-helix inspired policies often include mediated
networks which include key individuals from the three spheres in cluster, network and platform
organisations. They tend to focus on natural sciences and technology transfer. Science parks
and incubators are examples of the infrastructure that is often part of public policies supporting
triple-helix knowledge transfers. Other examples include funding to link universities and firms in
14
knowledge sharing and development. In line with a (slow) move within innovation policies from a
focus on technological innovations to a broader innovation concept including services innovation,
triple-helix thinking too has become more widely used than narrowly focusing on technology.
Clusters are one of the most popular approaches to regional economic development. The
cluster concept is one of the most enduring but also most contested, with a range of competing
definitions. The best known is probably Michael Porter’s: “a cluster is a geographically proximate
group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities’.9 Porter’s cluster concept includes firm strategy, structure and
rivalry, supply and demand conditions, as well as related and supporting industries. The more
intense the interactions between these factors, the more productive and competitive the firms.
The intensity of interaction is increased if the firms concerned are located close together. Cluster
policy initiatives have been particularly prominent within regional development over the last twenty
years. Although cluster initiatives have evolved over the years, most of them tend to follow similar
prescriptions and have been adopted by organisations at a regional, national, and supra-national
level.
Clusters
•
focus on groups of firms and their institutional environment.
•
stimulate social processes to support trust building and promote knowledge flow.
•
emphasis on the possibilities of endogenous growth over inward investment.
•
prioritisation of knowledge creation and innovation within selected networks to
act as drivers for general economic growth
•
stress role of public institutions as facilitators and brokers within networks of
firms and knowledge providers.
They require the identification of specialised agglomerations of economic activity which are then
targeted for support, usually in the form of R&D assistance, training, capital investment, and attempts to inculcate cluster identity. Whilst the innovation systems, learning regions and triple-helix
approaches are by definition focussed on innovation, knowledge transfer and high tech activities,
the cluster approach can be applicable to any kind of economic activity. However, in practice it too
has been used mainly as a tool to develop high status scientific and high tech industries. Almost
every regional development agency seems intent on developing an ICT, biosciences or other high
tech cluster, whether or not their region has any existing competency in those areas. This is an
important critique that has developed around the cluster concept.
However, some of the assumptions upon which these approaches are based have been
undermined in recent years. With too much focus on the local and regional knowledge interactions
and collaborations, the importance of extra-regional resources and relations can be missed. It is
increasingly recognised that a combination of networks at local, regional, national and international
levels are a key feature of successful innovation. Multi-scalar networks that are not necessarily
directed towards one particular sector but instead revolve around, for instance, related varieties
15
that complement each other in synergetic ways. In some regions this is gradually becoming part
of policy practice, because policies which focus only on building internal links within individual
regions run the risk of becoming too inward-looking. Simply mobilising internal knowledge may not
be enough in an era of increasing global competition.
While the ambition to promote development of the knowledge economy has become
ubiquitous, developing policies that can move Europe in this direction is a challenging task. This is
because the global knowledge economy itself is changing rapidly and therefore constitutes a moving target. It is also because, unlike policies and governance structures which by definition have
geographical limits, many forms of knowledge are inherently mobile.
16
3. Knowledge and Policies for Regional
Development: European Trends
By Henrik Halkier and Phil Cooke
European policies for regional economic development are not what they used to be. Thirty years
ago policies were about hardware – machines, buildings, and infrastructure – but now the focus
has shifted towards knowledge and other soft resources. Thirty years ago policies only operated
in designated ‘problem regions’, where central government would offer financial incentives in order
to increase the volume of economic activity. In recent decades, regional economic development
has also entered the political agenda in well-off parts of Europe, both European and regional actors now play central roles, and the range of policy instruments has increased significantly. A wide
range of policies influence economic development in regions and this is reflected in the following
chapters. This chapter, however, will focus exclusively on policies aiming to deliberately promote
economic development in one or more European regions. This chapter surveys key patterns and
trends in policies for regional development throughout the EU, also at the national and regional
levels, in order to capture their implications for knowledge dynamics within the regions. In this way
a bridge is constructed between the ambitious knowledge-economy goals identified in Chapter 2
and the case studies of knowledge dynamics and public policies in Part III of this report.
3.1. Policy and regional development: Key dimensions
The key features of regional economic development policies in the countries and regions of
Europe can be defined by two relationships, as illustrated by Figure 3.1. On the one hand is the
relationship between the region and its wider geographical context. This can be characterised
in terms of private economic competitiveness, public governance structures, and involvement in
national/European regional policy programmes. On the other hand are the individual policies designed to influence, directly or indirectly, the behaviour of firms, citizens and other public organisations in order to achieve regional development goals. The various analytical dimensions are set out
in more detail in Table 3.1 and its accompanying text.
Figure 3.1. Policies for regional development: Analytical framework.
European
& national
context
Economic
Governance
Policies
Region
Organisation
Policy aims
Policy instruments
Knowledge implications
Businesses
& workforce
Source: Reworked on the basis of Halkier (2006: 93).
17
The three contexts of regions10
The wider national and European context of regionally-based economic development activities
comprise three important dimensions that can be measured in relatively simple ways. Firstly, the
economic context positions the region vis-à-vis other regions in terms of the competitiveness of
the firms operating there. This influences the economic challenges in terms of growth and employment. Secondly, the ability of individual regions to respond to perceived economic challenges is
circumscribed by the governance context, i.e. the extent to which they have political powers to
institute and finance policy initiatives. Thirdly, the adoption of particular policy initiatives also
depends on the policy context¸ i.e. policies instituted by different tiers of government that can
inspire or prevent particular forms of intervention.
Policy dimensions11
As summarised in the table below, policies aiming to influence regional development can be characterised according to four dimensions which describe 1) the organisation of public intervention,
2) its aims, 3) the instruments used, and 4) the knowledge implications of policies. Organisation
refers to the geographical coverage of policy which might be complete or partial in relation to a
region. It also includes political influence on policy-making, which might be direct or arms-length,
for example. Strategy refers to the general direction of change, for example expansion or modernisation. It also includes the specific targets of change, both the institutions (individuals, firms,
or the entire system) and the type of capabilities that will change: tangible ‘hardware’, immaterial
‘software’ or relational ‘orgware’. Policy instruments refer to the resources used to make it attractive for firms and organisations to change their behaviour according to public priorities, for example when organisational facilities are made available to private firms on the condition that they
collaborate with other firms to form a cluster. Knowledge impact refers to economic purpose of
knowledge activities and the nature of knowledge involved. Knowledge phases express the extent
to which a particular knowledge activity is oriented towards creating economic benefits: is existing
knowledge beingexploited for e.g. production or marketing purposes, or is a phenomenon being
explored with no particular economic application in mind? Knowledge types refer the nature of the
knowledge involved, i.e. has it been produced through science-based analytical methods, through
engineering-type try-and-fail synthetic methods, or does it reflect symbols and values in society.
Dimension
Organisation
Strategy
Policy instruments
Knowledge impact
18
Sub-dimensions
Variables
Geographical coverage
Complete / partial / absent
Political influence
Direct / arm’s-length / diffuse
General direction of change
Expansion / duplication / modernisation / creativity
Target institutions
Individuals / firms & organisations / system
Target capabilities
Hardware / software / orgware
Resources
Authority / information / finance / organisation
Rules
Mandatory / conditional / voluntary
Knowledge types
Analytical / synthetic / symbolic
Knowledge phases
Exploration / examination / exploitation
3.2. Changing economic and governance contexts
When public policies aim to address economic development issues, understanding the nature of
current challenges is crucial. This applies to new and emerging areas of economic activity, but
also to traditional areas that may be revitalised or phased out. The crisis of traditional industries in
face of international competition has prompted public policies both at the European, national and,
indeed, regional and local levels, and so has the gradual emergence of the knowledge economy.
Transitions between economic paradigms have been modelled in many different ways, and in
EURODITE the uneven developments among firms and regions is emphasised. The importance
of a fit between social, economic, political and technological developments is also underlined.
In terms of economic development this allows for the fact that some regions lead and others
lag. With the right combination of customers, producers, knowledge resources and governance
some regions can lead the transition towards a new socio-economic paradigm by exploiting their
‘related variety’ because knowledge will spill-over most effectively among sectors differ from each
other but still share certain complementary competences.
Table 3.1. Innovation, knowledge and economic paradigms.
Traditional industrial-economy
New knowledge-economy
Geographical pattern of
knowledge interactions
Innovation
(within firms/sectors/clusters)
Territorial knowledge dynamics
Mobilisation of new
knowledge
Specialised/intermittent
Generalised/permanent
Knowledge dynamics
Cumulative
Combinatorial
Territory
Spatial division of
activities/labour
Multi-local knowledge networks
Sources: Reworked from Crevoisier and Jeannerat (2009) and Cooke (2009).
In terms of economic development processes, the key change from an industrial towards a
knowledge-based paradigm is summarised in a stylised way in Table 3.1. The traditional industrial
economy revolved around firm-internal, sectoral or cluster-type innovation. The mobilisation of
new knowledge was a specialised activity undertaken under closed conditions in R&D laboratories
which resulted in path-dependant cumulative knowledge development. There was also a pronounced division of labour between knowledge-intensive metropolitan management headquarters
and their peripheral low-end production facilities. In contrast to this the new knowledge-economy
paradigm is characterised by constant efforts to create and use many different kinds of new
knowledge. Firms combine different types of knowledge within wide-ranging networks that stretch
beyond the local/regional context. The implication of this is – provided that conditions are right in
terms of compatible private economic actors, knowledge institutions and public governance – that
localities and regions may be able to move forward in terms of developing future-oriented knowledge-intensive economic activities.
19
Territorial knowledge dynamics
•
The geographical patterns of knowledge exchange, networks and interactions between different actors. Key actors may include firms, higher education institutions,
chambers of commerce, local and regional authorities
•
The geographical focus stresses the importance of the regional level but emphasises
that interaction is not constrained to an administrative regional level but multi-scalar
and potentially including important interactions over long distances
The role of political institutions and government policies in shaping patterns of development in market-oriented economies is well-established. Recent decades have also witnessed major changes in the role of the public sector in society. These changes have often been summarised
as a shift from government to governance. Instead of exercising government authority in selected
problem areas and leaving the rest to be sorted out by market forces and civil society, modern
governance requires extensive and ongoing interaction between public and private actors. This
involves exchange of a wide range of resources in order to influence the direction of socio-economic activity. The ability to perform this role effectively depends not only on political and financial
resources - for example, decentralisation of policy-making and revenue-raising powers12 – but also
on the use being made of these powers. Are policies reacting to existing problems, or are they being used proactively to shape long-term development prospects? Are relationships between public
and private actors more or less hierarchical? Are activities between different branches and levels
of government coordinated in order to maximise their economic development impact? Are policies
‘backing winners’ by focusing existing firms, cluster and sectors? Alternatively, do they attempt to
recombine competences involved in different types of economic activity? Does policy strengthen
existing patterns of knowledge dynamics (possibly cumulative development of knowledge within
a particular technological trajectory), or does it attempt to promote new combinatorial knowledge
dynamics? In short, different types of governance have different implications for economic development in general and knowledge dynamics in particular. However, it cannot be taken for granted
that governance structures automatically ‘fit’ current socio-economic challenges. Like economic
or technological practices, governance is ‘sticky’ because prevailing ways of doing politics and organising the interaction between public and private actors are hard to change. Therefore, creativity
is called for in policy-making when trying to make large-scale changes like developing Europe into
a leading knowledge society and economy.
3.3 Changing policy contexts
In the 21st century, firms and organisations in most European regions are subject to many different
attempts to influence their activities, bringing them closer to public political priorities with regards
to e.g. more and better jobs, increased competitiveness, sectoral change, and more knowledgeintensive networking. These policies are sponsored from within the region and from the national
and the European levels. They are implemented by a wide range of public or semi-public bodies,
stretching from government departments via semi-autonomous ‘arm’s-length’ regional development agencies to public-private partnerships or private-sector organisations acting on behalf of
20
public authorities. In Europe, policies for regional economic development have existed for nearly
half a century, but while the interest in influencing economic activity along spatial lines has been
persistent, the form taken by public intervention has changed significantly several times both with
regard to coverage and organisation, as illustrated by Table 3.2.
Table 3.2. The political geography of policies for regional development.
Spatial coverage
Spatial
organisation
Selective
Unselective
Single-tier
National top-down
Regional bottom-up
Multi-level
EU Structural Funds
Growth partnerships
In the 1960s and 1970s regional policy was an unambiguous phenomenon in Western
Europe. It was dominated by central government top-down programmes, in which financial and
other ‘hard’ resources were employed to achieve interregional equality through redistribution of
economic growth. This happened especially through dispersion of firms and investment from more
prosperous parts of the country to designated problem regions with high levels of unemployment.
Policy programmes were generally not selective, i.e. they did not focus on particular industries or
types of firms, and they operated in a reactive manner with government offices considering applications from individual firms for assistance such as financial support for particular investments.
In Central and Eastern Europe central government was the crucial actor with regard to regional
development, although of course the policy instruments – state planning and public ownership –
reflected the economic system in place before the political changes in the early 1990s.
From the 1980s onwards other actors, both regional and European, came to play important roles in regional development alongside central government. An increasing number of policy
programmes, came to involve cooperation between several tiers of government. The regional subsidy programmes of central government were maintained in most countries with reduced levels of
expenditure, and an explosive growth occurred in what became known as ‘bottom-up’ regional
policy – initiatives specific to individual regions, which often involved the setting up of separate
development bodies. Although such initiatives obviously depended on the varying degrees of
autonomy accorded to the regional level within more or less decentralised national systems of
governance, regionally-based institutions were generally perceived to be able to target the specific
needs of individual areas and operate in a more proactive manner by devising programmes and
projects. Policies focused mainly on strengthening the competitiveness of the region by supporting
indigenous firms through ‘soft’ policy instruments like advisory services, although in many cases
‘harder’ forms of support, such as technological infrastructure or venture capital, were part of the
armoury too.
In parallel with this mushrooming of economic development initiatives ‘from below’, the
European level also emerged as a major actor in regional policy. The European Structural Funds
came to constitute a regional policy programme in its own right with a separate system of designated ‘problem areas’ and development programmes., Hence the focus shifted from diversities
within each member state to different levels of economic development in regions across Europe.
Although ‘hard’ policy instruments such as infrastructure and investment subsidies continued to
21
play a major role, support for ‘softer’ measures such as advisory services and network building
became increasingly important and regionally-based bodies were often involved in designing and
implementing development initiatives sponsored by the EU Structural Funds. Finally, from the late
1990s onwards the emergence of a new paradigm, growth partnerships, has been seen in an
increasing number of member states. Here central government, together with sub-national actors,
pool resources in order to promote economic growth in regions throughout the country, in effect a
regionalised form of industrial policy.
In short, while regional economic development has continued to be a political concern, the
political geography has shifted significantly. Regional policy is no longer the exclusive domain of
central government, nor is it exclusively a phenomenon associated with poor peripheral regions:
policies for regional development are now applied across all types of regions. The regional level
has achieved prominence, albeit often heavily embedded in European and national programmes
and regulation. The implications of this shift in terms of knowledge processes will be explored in
greater detail in Chapter 4. However, it is immediately obvious that while the original top-down
form of regional policy simply supported the development path of existing firms, the new policy
paradigms would appear to be much more knowledge intensive. In order to make a difference,
policy instruments such as advisory services and network building require intimate knowledge of
local economic activities, and focus of attention has shifted in the direction of knowledge-intensive
activities such as innovation and networking. Thus policies are now much more likely to stimulate
new knowledge processes.
3.4. Regional development from below: Policies and governance
While national and European policies for regional development have been systematically compared since 1980, regionally-based initiatives have rarely been compared in a systematic manner
on a European scale. In order to situate the EURODITE case studies in relation to trends within
regional policy in Europe more generally, a major survey of regionally-based development bodies
and their policies in EU member states has been undertaken which also included information with
regard to governance and gender. The web-based survey was undertaken in 2006/2007, covering
22 EU member states and focusing on the important organisations at meso-level, i.e. at the scale
between the national and local levels, and their key policies,13 as illustrated by Figure 3.2.
80
70
3/19
20/21
6/6
60
4/15
50
4/5
2/10
40
10/12
12/12
4/4
16/16
7/11
17/17
7/14
30
6/13
2/8
9/9 5/7
6/11
20
10
6/16
15/15
12/20
8/12
0
Regional
Figure 3.2. Regional development bodies
surveyed (actual/potential).
Source: RDA survey 2007 database.
22
Central
Local
Multi
Figure 3.3. Sponsors of RDAs.
Number of organisations (N = 178).
Source: RDA survey 2007 database as reported in Halkier (2010)
Although it could be expected that regional development bodies would primarily be sponsored by regions, the European survey showed that in fact this is the case for less than half the
organisations surveyed (see Figure 3.3). Regional sponsoring is, unsurprisingly, especially common
in regions with high levels of autonomy. Moreover, and in line with the results of an earlier smallscale pilot study of the situation in the early 1990s,14 multiple sponsorship characterises no less
than 40 per cent of the organisations. Multi-level governance would appear to have become a
prominent and permanent feature in the current governance of regional economic development.
Looking at the governance of regional development bodies in more detail, the relation
between the organisation and its political sponsors could be characterised as arm’s-length for the
majority of organisations. In other words, the sponsor only oversees development in general terms
and leaves considerable powers with regard to strategic initiatives and implementation to the
evelopment body itself. Still, a sizeable minority of organisations are directly incorporated into the
administrative structures of mainstream government, in most cases aided by a separate (advisory)
board of directors. Of the organisations surveyed, around one third recorded the gender balance
of their governing boards in a publicly accessible manner, and of these 63 bodies only 11 had
attained a gender balance (on the 60/40 principle), two had absolute gender balance and one was
female dominated.
With regard to regional development strategy, the survey shows that development bodies
across Europe have very similar objectives, both in terms of their overall corporate goals and the
aims associated with individual policy initiatives. The competitiveness-oriented EU Lisbon strategy
is clearly dominant and, at least in terms of how the aims of regional policy are being talked about,
this differs from the situation in the early 1990s when equality-oriented goals like creating or safeguarding jobs were quite common.
With regard to more detailed strategic policy aims, the predominance of policies aiming to
bring about qualitative change in the regional economy is evident. Seven of the ten most frequent
policies appear to involve attempts to qualitatively improve things rather than simply bolster or
boost existing activities. Similar figures were recorded in the early 1990s, and thus the dominance
of policies oriented towards qualitative change in the regional economy now seems to be firmly
entrenched. Although the strategic variation is striking no matter what the economic position of
the region, it would appear that the network or cluster approach is more common in well-off and
dynamic regions than in localities scoring lower in the economic indices. Efforts to modernise
individual firms are most pronounced in old industrial regions. In other words, if regional policies
are supposed to address social and political as well as economic needs of individual regions – the
findings of the survey suggest that this is happening in Europe today.
Looking at individual policies within the 181 development bodies, we have considered the
policy targets in order to establish how strategic aims are translated in concrete objectives for
change. In other words, who or what is going to change in which way as a result of public intervention in order for the policy measure to achieve its aims? Table 3.3 charts the changes in capabilities sought – hardware, software or orgware cf. the box in Section 3.1 – in relation to different
types of institutional targets. For each of these characteristics, the relative importance of different
policy instruments is illustrated by means of ‘tennis balls’ in order to facilitate comparison between
different forms of economic activity and position individual sectors in relation to the overall average
among case study policies.15 It is immediately obvious that organisations – most often private
23
firms – remain by far the most important institutional target of regional policy in European regions,
and also that the capacity most often targeted relates to software, i.e. boosting the economically
useful knowledge available. It is, however also noticeable that both training of individual persons
and various system-level measures (infrastructure, cluster formation) also play a significant role,
and, indeed, that around a quarter of all the measures targeting firms actually attempt to improve
their orgware, e.g. by encouraging them to participate in networks with other firms or knowledge
institutions. Compared to the smaller survey of RDAs undertaken in the 1990s, the two most
important changes are clearly the increased importance of training of the potential and present
workforce and the explosive growth in network-oriented measures. All in all this shows a gradual
shift in new, and clearly knowledge-intensive, directions, not just for the policy targets, but also for
the policy-making organisations who are developing and implementing these new types of
initiatives.
Table 3.3. RDA policy targets.
Target institutions
Target
capabilities
Persons
Organisations
System
Hardware
Software
Orgware
Source: RDA survey 2007 database as reported in Halkier 2010. Number of policies (N = 692).
Note: Analytical framework outlined in Section 3.1.
Table 3.4. RDA policy instruments.
Policy rules
Policy
resources
Mandatory
Conditional
Unconditional
Authority
Finance
Information
Organisation
Source: RDA survey 2007 database as reported in Halkier 2010. Number of policies (N = 692).
Note: Analytical framework outlined in Section 3.1.
The policy instruments used to bring about change combine resources and rules. In order
to make actors behave in ways conducive to policy goals, resources are made available on more
or less stringent conditions. As illustrated by Table 3.4, some of the basic policy instruments have
not been used by the RDAs surveyed to promote regional development. No policy instruments relying on authority as their primary resource or prescribing mandatory use of other resources are in
evidence. What is equally striking, however, is the fact that the direct transfer of financial resources
plays a relatively limited role, although of course the unconditional availability of informational or
organisational resources does entail a financial subsidy. The main instruments of regional development bodies in Europe are now clearly organisational and informational resources, and perhaps
unsurprisingly given the importance of software as the main target of capacity change (cf. Table
24
3.3), information is the most important policy resource. Furthermore, it is common for individual
policies to combine different policy rules by making some resources available unconditionally,
while other resources are only available if firms meet certain conditions, e.g. sign up to participate
in more extensive interactions with the development body or undertake to invest some of their
own resources in particular ways. In fact more than two-thirds of the policies surveyed entail both
unconditional and conditional access to resources in order to influence the behaviour of economic
actors within their region.
With regard to the knowledge impact of policies for regional development, the vast majority
of the most prominent policies of the organisations surveyed are ‘knowledge explicit’ in the sense
that they either intend to influence the software or orgware capacities of their targets, or employ
informational or organisational resources in order to bring about changes within the regional
economy. Compared to previous regional policy paradigms, especially traditional top-down central
government grant schemes, the current knowledge-intensive policy profile greatly increases the
demands on development bodies in terms of knowledge resources. This is the case both in-house
in terms of employee competences, and externally through access to regional, national and international networks. In relation to the firms and other targets of regional development, it is, however,
also interesting to note what kind of knowledge is being influenced by RDA policies. What is the
balance between more or less immediately useful knowledge? Are some types of knowledge given
particular attention at the expense of others? The data analysis demonstrates that the focus of
the policies surveyed is nearly exclusively on knowledge exploitation, i.e. using existing knowledge
for economic purposes. In fact only three policies were identified where the focus was knowledge
examination in order to establish the economic potential of existing knowledge. Perhaps less
surprisingly, no instances were found where generation of knowledge through less user-oriented
exploration, such as basic research, was being supported. Similarly, the limited importance of
analytical, natural-science type knowledge is noticeable. Only two cases have been identified,
but given the widespread interest in biotech among policy-makers across Europe, this perhaps
reflects the fact that such initiatives appeal to a relatively small group of clients and therefore have
not generally been given much prominence on the websites analysed. Still, the predominance of
synthetic knowledge is striking, reflecting a focus on manufacturing and business skills. At the
same time it is also noticeable that symbolic knowledge plays an important role in connection with
communication-oriented policies such as the attraction of inward investment and advice on markets and marketing. All in all it is obvious that the knowledges necessary for regional development
bodies to promote economic development remain heterogeneous. By implication, small organisations will need to be well networked in order to compensate for limited in-house resources.
3.5. Conclusion: A changing environment of policies for regional
development
An important finding of the survey is the fact that multi-level governance of bottom-up policies for
regional development now has become widespread. Most individual development bodies and/or
their activities are sponsored by several tiers of government rather than simply by the region itself.
This, in turn, has further strengthened the arm’s-length principle so that development bodies, at
least from an institutional perspective, operate as semi-autonomous entities outside mainstream
25
government. Taken together, this implies that a new generation of regionally based development
bodies, networked RDAs, has become a prominent feature in regional policy in Europe.
In terms of strategies, the objectives of regional development are now firmly dominated by
Lisbon-style competitiveness-oriented discourse, and this fits well with the fact that current policies focus on supporting qualitative change in the regional economy. While private firms remain the
most common targets, targeting individuals through, for example, training measures, has grown in
importance, along with change in software and orgware. In short, policy measures for regional
development have themselves acquired a noticeable network dimension, with a focus on stimulating inter-firm relations and relations between firms and public knowledge institutions.
In the light of this, it is hardly surprising that the policy instruments employed by regional
development bodies across Europe are dominated by the use of informational and organisational
resources, and thus the vast majority of policies are of a knowledge-explicit and knowledge-intensive character, requiring detailed knowledge of particular firms and areas of economic activity. In
terms of the knowledge impact of RDA policies, exploitation of business and engineering (synthetic) know-ledge predominates, although marketing (symbolic) knowledge is clearly a secondary
focus.
All in all, many of the policy characteristics associated with ‘learning regions’ in the early
1990s have been gradually spreading throughout Europe and are no longer concentrated in a few
well-endowed high-performing regions.
26
Part III: Knowledge Dynamics and
Regional Development
This part of the report contains six chapters that report findings and policy-implications from
research undertaken as part of the EURODITE project. Most of the chapters are primarily based
on case-studies of knowledge dynamics across Europe in and between seven important sectors of economic activity. Additional material includes an innovative quantitative study of regional
knowledge configurations, as well as work on gender aspects of knowledge, regional development and public policy. Each of the chapters adopt a different perspective on the wealth of material generated by researchers within the EURODITE project, looking at policy implications from
a sectoral perspective (Chapter 4), through a quantitative analysis of knowledge resources and
dynamics in European regions (Chapter 5), from the perspective of private firms and organisations
(Chapter 6), from a geographical perspective (Chapter 7), from the perspective of different types
and uses of knowledge (Chapter 8), and from the perspective of gender (Chapter 9). All the chapters in this section contain a list of policy challenges that have been identified as part of EURODITE
research – and that have to be addressed in order to promote further development of the knowledge economy in Europe.
27
28
4. Public Policy and Sectoral
Knowledge Dynamics
By Henrik Halkier
In Chapter 3 the focus was on establishing the characteristics of existing policies of especially
RDAs through a top-down survey. In contrast, the current chapter adopts a bottom-up perspective by undertaking an analysis of those public policies that have influenced the knowledge
processes and events which have been researched as part of the EURODITE project through
case studies of firm-level and territorial knowledge dynamics. Taken together, Chapter 3 and the
current Chapter 4 therefore provide an all-round view of the key characteristics of public policies
for regional economic development in Europe and their general implications for knowledge dynamics in particular. And because of its focus on policies that made a difference, the current chapter
can also form the basis of forward-looking policy recommendations with a view to promote the
development of the knowledge economy in European regions.
The chapter proceeds in four steps. The text begins by briefly summarising the contexts in
which the case studies took place followed by a discussion of the policies associated with them.
For each case study the public policies influencing knowledge processes have been identified
and classified according to the conceptual framework outlined in Chapter 3.16 Policies covered
are public policies (local, regional, national, EU) that has been (or could be) relevant for knowledge
dynamics at the regional and firm levels. Thereafter, key characteristics of the policies influencing
knowledge dynamics are analysed, and trends within and across sectors are identified. Finally,
new opportunities for policy-making will be considered. The analysis is organised along sectoral
lines, because it is assumed that knowledge dynamics to some extent differ between various
areas of economic activity,17 but at the same time cross-sectoral policies and patterns will be
acknowledged since these are identified as important seedbeds for innovation. Research has not
been designed as an evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of individual measures, but
simply functions as a means to identify knowledge effects of existing and potential measures. The
aim is to help to focus future policy developments and evaluations, in the light of political ambitions with regard to knowledge society development.
4.1. Case-study contexts and policies
Empirical work within EURODITE concentrated on seven sectors of economic activity which individually and taken together make a significant contribution to the production of goods and services within the EU, whether measured in terms of GDP or employment. On the basis of overviews
of knowledge dynamics in the chosen sectors, case studies were selected on the basis of their
potential to illuminate general issues and match the research competences among EURODITE
partners. Although this procedure has lead to a focus on new and innovative projects, in particular, the regions in which territorial knowledge dynamics and firm level knowledge dynamics were
elaborated varied greatly in terms of their knowledge resources and socio-economic development. The case studies therefore represent different combinations of production and consumption
profiles.
29
Examples of case studies
•
Skaane, Sweden: development of film tourism centred around Ystad, the location
of the Wallander crime stories which have been exported across Europe, and
now attracts growing visitor numbers
•
Bratislava, Slovakia: the interplay between government regulation and firm-level
innovation in the development of information security SMEs
•
Birmingham, UK: Development of the serious games industry to strengthen the
regional position in digital media
•
Baden-Würtemberg, Germany: The role of knowledge-intensive business services in developing innovation in the automotive industry
Variation with regard to more or less standardised or specialised producers and individual or
corporate users provide different contexts for economic development policies. Even within individual sectors, case studies have generally stretched across several production and consumption
profiles. The EURODITE case studies therefore appear to cover a great deal of the diversity that
characterises economic activities within Europe, albeit with a focus on more rather than less innovative processes of change.
Table 4.1. Case studies and policies impacting on knowledge dynamics.
Regional-level
case studies
Firm-level
case studies
Policies identified
as effectual
Automotive
3
5
28
Biotech
6
6
17
Food and drink
2
3
22
ICT
5
5
15
KIBS
2
4
19
New media
3
3
37
Tourism
4
4
10
Total
19
30
148
A similar degree of diversity can be observed with regard to the policies recorded in the
case studies as those actually or potentially influencing knowledge dynamics and summarised in
Table 4.1. Even within each of the seven sectors, a considerable degree of variation with regard to
policies is in evidence with regard to
30
•
firm-level selectivity, ranging from individual public-private partnerships in tourism, via sectoral
initiatives in biotech and technological platforms in new media, to general measures like ICT
security regulation
•
geographical scope, ranging from one-off projects in automotive, via local and regional development initiatives, to national and supra-national policies such as the European Regional
Development Fund
•
financial scope, ranging from small local projects to the European Common Agricultural Policy
•
directness of effect, ranging from on-going partnership relations and direct financial subsidies
for individual firms, to measures that alter the environment in which firms operate by means of
e.g. introduction of new infrastructure, altering demand from consumers, firms and public institutions, or provision of new knowledge of production technologies, organisational patterns
and consumption trends
•
history of implementation, ranging from innovative experimental measures to long-standing
comprehensive programmes that have been regularly evaluated with regard to impacts on
e.g. employment and economic growth
It can be safely assumed that the policies identified in the case studies cover a wide spectrum of
public initiatives. Analysing them adds both detail and breadth to the results from the survey of
regionally-based policies presented above. From the perspective of the firm or organisation, the
most important thing is how it itself is being affected by particular policy – regardless of the policy’s
origins and history. It is therefore a bottom-up firm-level perspective that has guided the analysis
underlying the current chapter.
In the following sections, key characteristics of the policies influencing knowledge dynamics are analysed with regard to their general strategic orientation, the specific targets in which
change is sought, the policy instruments employed, the governance context which policies
establish for economic activities, and the implications for knowledge dynamics of public intervention. For each of these characteristics, the relative importance of different policy instruments is
illustrated by means of ‘tennis balls’ in order to facilitate comparison between different forms of
economic activity and to position individual sectors in relation to the overall average among case
study policies.18
4.2. Strategic aims of policies
A key feature of public policy is its general economic aims or implications. Will additional goods
and services be produced by existing or new firms? Will these new economic activities change in
terms of quantity or quality? By combining changes in products and the organisation of economic
activity, we arrive at four basic strategic orientations of public policy – expansion, duplication,
modernisation, and creativity – which are summarised in the adjoining box.
Development strategies
•
expansion: greater volume of activity in existing firms (e.g. increased sales as the
result of decreasing transport costs, improved occupancy rates in hotels as the
result of public destination marketing)
•
duplication: greater volume of activity through the creation or attraction of new
firms (e.g. support for entrepreneurs or inward investment)
•
modernisation: activities within existing firms become more competitive (e.g.
investment in new technologies, inter-firm networking)
•
creativity: new types of economic activity through new firms (e.g. inward investment, local investors, or spin-offs from existing firms)
31
As shown by Table 4.2, all four strategic orientations are present to some extent in all sectors for which data is available, although overall a focus on qualitative change in products or
processes clearly dominates. The latter is especially noticeable in traditional industries undergoing
rapid change, like food and drink, and tourism, while the emphasis on strengthening existing types
of activities is most pronounced in established high-tech industries like ICT, KIBS, and automotive.
Moreover, it is also clear that compared to the results of the survey of European RDAs reported in
Chapter 3, less emphasis is given to duplication strategies. This is partly because of the focus of
innovative case studies in the research design, but undoubtedly also because general support for
small firms and entrepreneurship, a major area of RDA activity, does not register much impact in
relation to the case-studies undertaken as part of EURODITE.
Table 4.2. Relative importance of development strategies.
Expansion
Duplication
Modernisation
Creativity
Auto
Food
ICT
KIBS
New media
Tourism
All cases
Source: EURODITE case study reports.
Note: No data available for biotech.
4.3. Targets of change
In order to establish how strategic aims are translated in concrete objectives for change, it is necessary to consider the policy targets. Who or what is going to change, and in what way, in order
for the policy measure to achieve its aims. Table 4.3 charts the changes in capabilities sought –
hardware, software and orgware cf. the explanation in Section 3.1 – in relation to different types of
institutional targets.
Table 4.3. Relative importance of policy targets.
Target capabilities
Target institutions
Individual
Firm/org.
Auto
Bio
Food
ICT
KIBS
New media
Tourism
All cases
Source: EURODITE case study reports.
Note: Analytical framework outlined in Section 3.1.
32
System
Hardware
Software
Orgware
In terms of institutional targets, it is immediately clear that measures aiming to influence
individuals within the workforce are relatively less common, although more frequent in sectors
like ICT and tourism. In contrast to this, the overall distribution of target capabilities – hardware,
software and orgware – is relatively even, but this is actually the result of different patterns in the
individual sectors. Change in hardware (often infrastructure) is particularly widespread in new
media and ICT. Change in software is particularly associated with automotive, food and drink, and
KIBS. Orgware change is common throughout the seven sectors, albeit particularly pronounced in
biotech. Compared to the findings of the RDA survey reported in the previous chapter (Figure 3.4),
the policies identified as influential in the case studies are much more likely to focus on bringing
about systemic change in the framework conditions for economic activity and, although less pronounced, to focus on changing orgware, e.g. by furthering network relations between economic
actors. These diffe-rences are likely to be the result of a division of labour between RDAs and
other policy actors, and hence strongly suggest that taking a holistic view of the preconditions of
economic change and ensuring coordination between public actors is essential.
4.4. Policy instruments
The policy instruments used to bring about change among the economic actors targeted a combination of resources and rules. In order to make actors behave in ways conducive to policy goals,
different types of resources are made available on more or less stringent conditions. Table 4.4
charts the policy instruments employed in the EURODITE case studies.
Table 4.4. Relative importance of policy instruments.
Policy resources
Policy rules
Mandatory
Conditional
Voluntary
Authority
Information
Finance
Organisation
Auto
Bio
Food
ICT
KIBS
New media
Tourism
All cases
Source: EURODITE case study reports.
Note: Analytical framework outlined in Section 3.1.
In terms of policy rules, the conditions on which access to public resources is being
granted, it is clear that mandatory measures play a limited role. The exception is in areas like ICT
and automotive, where security or safety considerations are important. Safety considerations are
of course also paramount in the food and drink sector, but here mandatory measures are crowded
out by the large number of other policies because of the selection of innovation-oriented cases. In
contrast, conditional quid-pro-quo measures account for more than half of all the policies identified as influencing territorial knowledge dynamics and firm level knowledge dynamics (except in
33
biotech and automotives). In biotech case studies voluntary measures are particularly common,
perhaps because economic actors here are seen as being especially capable of setting their own
priorities or public actors find it unusually difficult to grapple with. In terms of policy resources,
authority is used much less than the other three resources, except in ICT and automotive where
also ‘voluntary’ industry standards play a role in some cases. Information is generally an important policy resource, although less so in automotive. The use of financial means is highly uneven,
playing a rather limited role in biotech, KIBS, ICT, and tourism, but a central role in the new media
case studies, possibly because activities associated with culture and education have traditionally been financially supported by the public sector across Europe. However, the most common
policy resource has been organisational support, and thus the case studies confirm the general
importance associated with various forms of infrastructure, not just ‘hard’ physical but also ‘soft’
networking that was also in evidence in the RDA survey reported in the previous chapter (Figure
3.5). Still, differences between the case-studies and the RDA survey are also evident. The use of
authority and finance as policy resources is clearly less prominent, while informational resources
are much more important for RDAs across Europe. Again this is likely to be the result of a division
of labour between different policy actors where arm’s-length bodies like RDAs are less likely to be
issued with grant-giving or law-making powers. This underlines the importance of coordination of
strategies and measures.
4.5. Policy governance
The policy governance dimension depicts both the geographical scale of public intervention and
the relations established between policy-implementing organisations and the actors targeted by
policy. Is the relation between policy-maker and target a hierarchical chain of command (governmental relation), is it an ongoing relationship between independent but interdependent actors (network relation), or is it a one-off exchange of resources (market relation, like in e.g. grant giving)?
Table 4.5 charts the governance characteristics of the public policies identified as influential in the
EURODITE case studies.
Table 4.5. Relative importance of policy governance.
Policy relation
Policy scale
EU
Nat
Auto
Bio
Food
ICT
KIBS
New media
Tourism
All cases
Source: EURODITE case study reports.
Note: Analytical framework outlined in Section 3.1
34
Regional/local
Government
Network
Market
Two important policy governance features seem to stand out from the analysis of the
EURODITE case studies. Policies emanating from the regional/local level and ongoing network
relations are the most important relationship between policy-makers and policy targets. Both are
consistent with results of the RDA survey reported above, as is the finding that both national and
European policies also play important roles. The prominence of sub-national and national levels of
government can be found in all the seven sectors except ICT. The reason that this sector shows a
different pattern is probably due to the small number of cases in the latter. The role of the European level is more uneven. It is of limited importance in tourism and in the food and drink sector.
In the latter case, this is likely to be explained by a situation where the Common Agricultural Policy
is crowded out by the large number of other policies impacting on food. The European level is
particularly prominent in biotech, ICT and new media. With regard to the relationship between
policy-makers and targets, governmental relations are particularly important in automotive but play
a more limited role in new media, tourism and ICT. Ongoing network relations are common in all
seven sectors, while market relations are relatively rare in automotive but widespread in tourism
and new media. Taken together, the case-studies not only illustrate the importance of multi-level
policy governance but also that each of the sectors tends to be associated with different patterns
of policy governance. This result underlines the importance of tailor-made public policies for economic development.
While sector-specific policies are clearly still important, it is, however, also interesting to
note that a significant share of the policies that are reported to have had an impact on the case
study knowledge dynamics are in fact measures not targeting specific sectors but of a nonsectoral or in some cases cross-sectoral nature. This is particularly pronounced in KIBS, but also
in areas of economic activity traditionally dominated by sectoral policy-making like tourism and
food and drink. The reason for this is because individual development projects often have a crosssectoral nature (e.g. agriculture and food, tourism and sport) and therefore are able to draw on a
wider range of policy initiatives. Finally, from a governance perspective it should also be noted that
only few examples of comprehensive and deliberately cross-sectoral or ‘platform-oriented’ policies
have been identified.
4.6. Knowledge implications
The knowledge implications of public policy are a central concern within EURODITE. Here the focus is on the types of knowledge involved and the nature of the knowledge production processes.
The knowledge impact is summarised in Table 4.6. The underlying data shows that almost
half of the policies analysed impacted on the exploitation of knowledge, i.e. the use of knowledge
for economic purposes. The most extreme sectors in this respect are on the one hand tourism with a near-exclusive focus on exploitation, and on the other hand biotech with a very low
share, possibly due to the focus of case studies with very R&D-oriented firms. Examination of the
potential usefulness of knowledge is less evenly distributed, with biotech, food and KIBS casestudies being particularly prominent and tourism weakly represented. Finally, knowledge exploration with no immediate economic goal also turns out to have widespread importance, with the
exploitation-oriented tourism cases again being the main exception. Also with regard to the types
of knowledge influenced by public policy, differences between the cases from the seven sectors are noticeable and in line with what might be expected.19 Unsurprisingly, analytical natural-
35
science-based know-ledge is important in biotech and ICT, synthetic engineering-type knowledge
dominates in the automotive cases, and culturally-based symbolic knowledge particularly affected
by policies in cases related to KIBS and tourism. Compared to the RDA survey reported in the
previous chapter (Figure 3.6), these findings are important. They demonstrate that although the
most prominent RDA policies tended to focus near-exclusively on exploitation of synthetic and
symbolic knowledge, in practice a much wider range of knowledge impacts have been of importance for the knowledge dynamics in the EURODITE case studies. As demonstrated above, the
role of the regional and local levels of government was also important in the case studies, and the
rather monochrome results produced by the RDA survey would therefore seem to reflect existing
divisions of policy labour also at the sub-national level. However, the more wide-ranging knowledge impacts identified in the detailed bottom-up case studies underline the necessity of creating
synergies through coordination of the activities of different policy actors.
Table 4.6. Relative importance of policy impact on knowledge types and moments.
Knowledge type
Knowledge phases
Exploration
Examination
Exploitation
Analytical
Synthetic
Symbolic
Auto
Bio
Food
ICT
KIBS
New media
Tourism
All cases
Source: EURODITE case study reports. Note: Analytical framework outlined in Section 3.1.
4.7. Knowledge dynamics, sectors, and public policy
The public policies influencing the knowledge dynamics in the EURODITE case studies display
great variety, but also some common features worth noting. Firstly, it is clear that the individual
cases have been influenced by policies sponsored by a wide variety of public actors, albeit with a
strong local/regional component, and that policy initiatives often involve ongoing network relations
between public policy-making bodies and private firms. Secondly, the strategic focus of public
policy is generally on promoting innovation in products or processes, partly due to the focus on
innovative projects in the case-study selection. Specifically, policies aim to bring about change
in a wide range of targets among which general framework conditions and inter-organisational
relations are prominent. The aim is to achieve this by means of a diverse range of increasingly
knowledge-intensive policy instruments that would seem to reflect the specific conditions in individual sectors and cases. Thirdly, a variety of different knowledge processes have been stimulated
by public policy, not just those of immediate economic value or related to knowledge based in the
natural sciences and engineering. All in all, as individual case studies rarely are influenced by only
one policy initiative, the importance of coordination between different policy actors and initiatives
has been strongly underlined.
36
The policies influencing the EURODITE case studies can be related to general trends in regional
and economic policies which have been identified or hypothesised on the basis of the existing literature.
Furthermore, some dimensions can be identified where there is scope for further policy development,
either generally or in specific sectors. As could be expected in the area of regional economic policy, the
birthplace of the multi-level governance concept, the increasingly multi-level nature of policy-design and
implementation is clearly evident across case studies and sectors. However, the importance of public
regulatory pressure as creator of knowledge-intensive demand among (especially corporate) customers
varies greatly. It is very important in ICT and automotive, less evident in new media, and in some cases
even pointing in unexpected directions (e.g. regulation limiting innovation in certain areas of biotech or,
environmental regulations shifting tourism flows to other destinations). Moreover, policies often appear to
be evidence-based in the sense that they are tailor-made to address specific regional conditions, but this
does not necessarily imply taking a rounded or holistic view on development challenges. Policies are proclaimed or designed to be gender-neutral despite obvious gender issues in relation to consumption (e.g.
food or tourism demand patterns) and production (e.g. recruitment of female engineers/scientists). The
attention paid to symbolic forms of knowledge and the consumption side of economic knowledge processes is rather uneven, with the risk of product development with limited input from (and ultimately impact
on) customers or clients in sectors as different as tourism and biotech. Moreover, although increasing attention is given to combinatorial knowledge processes in most sectors, and the risk of development processes becoming locked in particular trajectories therefore reduced, support for extra-regional knowledge
interactions still varies considerably between cases and sectors. There is a risk of inward-looking firms
or clusters overlooking distance interactions with private partners and knowledge institutions outside the
region. Finally, in addition to these general suggestions with regard to public policy, the EURODITE case
studies have also identified a series of more specific suggestions relating to individual sectors which are
summarised on the next page.
37
Policy challenges
•
Policies should aim to influence a wider range of knowledge, including
- knowledge that is not immediately economically useful
- knowledge of new trends and demand patterns
- knowledge from a wider range of social contexts
•
In order to enhance the combined effect, increased coordination is needed
- between policies pursued by different levels of governance
- between different areas of public policy
•
Knowledge-intensive policies must be evidence-based, something which requires
- improved statistical resources for regional analysis
- more resources committed to policy preparation
Policy menu
rally
sector are gene
policies in this
d
an
,
pe
ro
Eu
ge
across
current knowled
s of EU policies
arranted by the
e uneven effect
w
th
be
of
to
e
pl
em
am
se
ex
would
clear-cut
umer trends than
Automotive. A
ledge and cons
ow
kn
lic
bo
m
sy
SMEs,
focusing less on
s
sector
lopment of firm
dynamics of the
later-stage deve
an
th
er
th
ra
p
hi
eurs
gional rather than
D and entrepren
focus on intra-re
to focus on R&
to
nd
te
nd
te
ies
ies
lic
lic
po
t
Po
sent
panies).
h-relevan
ultinational com
are curiously ab
Biotech. Biotec
nture capital, m
ic procurement
bl
(ve
pu
ns
d
tio
an
sa
ni
ce
ga
en
intellig
ivate or
proving market
which is left to pr
while policies im
ns
io
ct
ra
te
in
owledge
nonbeing driven by
extra-regional kn
b-sectors, often
su
n
ee
tw
be
r
ndies diffe
particularly depe
drink case stud
g the food and
food production
cin
e
tiv
en
na
flu
in
er
alt
ies
d
lic
The po
tional an
Food and drink.
h), and with func
ent, public healt
pm
lo
ve
de
l
ra
ions (ru
qualities
food considerat
their distinctive
cumentation of
do
e
tiv
goals
ita
or
th
ant on au
socio-economic
ted with wider
cia
so
as
n
te
of
d are
rious
or which no se
ory regimes, an
e high-tech sect
r)national regulat
th
te
g
(in
in
on
be
ily
of
av
ns
ctatio
pend he
ICT. Policies de
ed with the expe
ns) and burden
ize
cit
s/
m
fir
by
T use
(promotion of IC
ed or
can do without
region/country
rvices are extend
kets for KIBS se
ar
m
at
th
e
ns
the se
apparually indirect in
infrastructure is
BS sector are us
tor knowledge
KI
ec
e
-s
th
te
g
iva
cin
pr
en
ial
is cruc
ies influ
KIBS. The polic
and quality of th
us the presence
Th
.
ies
lic
assumption
po
ic
r publ
er questionable
th
ra
a
is
is
created by othe
th
h
makers, althoug
anted by policyfocus
ently taken for gr
surprisingly the
sive, although un
en
eh
pr
m
co
ite
s are
rally qu
rticular measure
sector are gene
the new media
e absence of pa
g
th
s
cin
se
en
ca
flu
e
in
m
ies
so
e polic
t, and in
New media. Th
me developmen
and serious ga
g
in
ak
-m
film
e.g.
differs between
n
nsumer
creating concer
out trends in co
e intelligence ab
tiv
ta
ali
qu
e
tiv
of crea
the importance
nd to overlook
te
ies
lic
po
t
an
-relev
and innovation
Tourism. Tourism
trepreneurship
en
ed
as
-b
er
uc
prod
stead resort to
demand and in
38
5. Knowledge and Regional Diversity:
Quantitative Trends
By Christophe Carrincazeaux, Frédéric Gaschet and Henrik Halkier
Since the early 1990s there has been a growing interest in the role of regions in knowledge economy. One reason is the ambiguous nature of knowledge which has some properties of a public
good (a substantial part of knowledge processes cannot be confined within a firm) but which still
remains spatially bounded to some extent because of the specific geography of knowledge interactions and networks. Concerns have therefore grown about the critical role of regions in fostering
the creation, dissemination and absorption of new knowledge between firms and organisations at
the local level.
This has resulted in European, national and local policies aimed at strengthening of the
knowledge base of regions. The European Union has devoted a central role to regional economies
in meeting the Lisbon objectives. The ‘triple-helix model’20 with close collaboration between public
bodies, private firms, and knowledge institutions has become a generic matrix of policies for local
economic development.
Territorial knowledge dynamics depend on the interplay of sector-specific characteristics and the regional context.
This chapter investigates the role played by regional knowledge bases in shaping knowledge dynamics. The EURODITE project proposes a new way to look at the geographical dimension of knowledge dynamics, defining territorial knowledge dynamics as the relevant subject of
analysis and thereby avoiding the traditional ‘localist’ bias in studies of regions. The basic argument of this chapter is that the relationship between territorial knowledge dynamics and regional
contexts is more complex than generally argued. Territorial knowledge dynamics must be analysed
more deeply in terms of the interplay between sectoral-specific and regional contexts.
This chapter argues that there are different types of regional economies. We label these
regional knowledge configurations (see Section 5.2). We argue that these regional knowledge
configurations are shaped by factors at several geographical levels. This is backed up by a quantitative analysis of European regions. Secondly, it is argued that the relationship between territorial
knowledge dynamics and regional knowledge configurations depends on the interplay of sector
specific and regional contexts. This is exemplified by an analysis of the dynamics of three sectors
across European regions. The analysis shows that local dynamics are mainly the result of consistency between the regional knowledge configuration and sector-specific characteristics. We argue
that an improved understanding of the regional knowledge base, the national framework, and the
sectoral and regional characteristics has important implications for the ways in which public policy
can attempt to stimulate growth in the knowledge economy.
39
5.1. The regional knowledge economy: Limits of the institutional perspective
In recent years there has been a growing focus on the role of regions as the main locus of coordination and implementation of processes involved in the creation, combination and exploitation of
new knowledge. Two types of arguments have supported this approach:
•
Territorial clustering of activities has been seen as beneficial for knowledge based activities
because it fosters the creation and absorption of knowledge by firms. The literature on clusters21 generally stresses the importance of geographically bounded knowledge ‘spillovers’.
•
Institutional thickness is a complementary perspective that stresses the role of regions and
territories. This approach emphasises the importance of local institutions and networks.
Several “territorial models of innovation” have been developed since the 1980s. They offer insights into the role of ‘local’ processes with regard to the innovation performances of firms.
Many concepts have been proposed in order to capture the role of localities in knowledge-based
economic development, e.g. ‘innovative milieu’, “technological districts”, and, not least, Michael
Porter’s concept of clusters. A broader and synthetic perspective was offered since the early
1990s through the concept of Regional Innovation Systems (RIS)22 which received considerable
attention from academic researchers as well as policy-makers. Like the evolutionary economics
literature on National Innovation Systems, the RIS approach conceptualised innovation as a social
and interactive process, and emphasised the role of the institutional context. This resulted in an
increasing demand for implementation of innovation policies at the regional level.
The institutional setting, which supports firms in their innovation through systematic interaction and collective learning is a key dimension of an RIS. The regional context in which these
interactions take place is primarily characterised by informal institutions such as norms, routines
and trust. A successful RIS is therefore a system characterised by a high level of local interactions
and interdependence.
RIS is…
“a geographically defined, administratively supported arrangement of innovative networks and institutions that interact regularly and strongly to enhance the innovative
outputs of firms in the region”
Cooke & Schienstock (2000: 273)
The RIS approach offers a broader and synthetic view on the local dimensions of innovation systems. The approach encompasses most key features of previous territorial models of
innovation such as the contextual and interactive nature of innovation processes, the importance
of local untraded interdependencies, and the role of networks and clusters. However, the RIS
approach focuses primarily on the governance structure. This has resulted in a typology of RIS
based on the relationships between the production structure and institutional set-up of a region,
oriented towards the governance mode of regional technology transfer. However, the typology
40
tends to promote the ‘regionally networked innovation systems’ as an ideal type of RIS, cumulating the advantages of the localist mode (embeddedness and market-oriented innovation) and of
the “dirigiste” one (R&D effort and science-industry relationships). It has thus been argued that
most regions initially classified in either the localist or dirigist categories tend to evolve towards a
regionally networked mode. This suggests that the importance of the national level is rather limited
in relation to that of regional networks and market relations.
5.2. Regional configurations of knowledge: The importance of national
institutional settings
In this quantitative part of the EURODITE project, a different framework has been adopted to
identify the regional configurations of knowledge production and use. This framework is a regional
adaptation of the social systems of innovation and production (SSIP) approach which focuses the
analysis of production systems on macro or meso-economic issues and a well-defined set of social institutions (Amable, 2000).23 In order to adapt the SSIP framework for research at the regional
level, pilot studies identified specific combinations of four main institutional dimensions which are
particularly relevant, as illustrated by Figure 5.1. A major advantage of this approach is that focusing on a regional level does not presuppose a high degree of functional autonomy, as the concept
of a ‘regional system’ implies because some of the institutional forms introduced in the analysis
may reflect decisions and patterns at the national level.
Building on data collection and statistical analysis across European regions,24 17 regional
know-ledge configurations have been identified in Europe. These represent different combinations of industrial structures and scientific, technological and labour force knowledge bases. The
profiles were created by combining data from a variety of statistical sources (Eurostat, Cambridge
econometrics, OST), over 139 ‘regions’ (NUTS 0-2). The 17 regional knowledge configurations
were statistically grouped into four main types of knowledge intensity (cf. Table 5.1, and Figure 5.2
at the back of the report). These configurations are based on standard available indicators and
remain very broad in their scope25 and in their territorial dimension. NUTS levels are chosen according to the political structure of each country and administrative regions can differ in their size.
Figure 5.1. Regional knowledge configurations – Key dimensions.
Scientific knowledge base
Technological
knowledge
base
Regional
knowledge
configuration
Labor force
knowledge
base
Industrial structure
Source: Carrincazeaux and Gaschet (2006)
41
Table 5.1. Regional knowledge configurations
Knowledge intensity
Knowledge intensive
profiles
Medium tech
intermediary
profiles
Low tech intermediary
profiles
Low tech profiles
Regional knowledge configuration
Regions
01 Metropolitan regions
1 AT, 1 BE, 1 DE, 1 FR, 1 UK, 1 SE
02 North high tech regions
2 FI, 3 SE
03 North scientific regions
1 AT, DK, 6 NL, 1 FI, 1 UK, 1 SE
04 British services and educational profile
6 UK
05 German high tech industrial profile
8 DE
06 Secondary metropolises regions
5 FR, 2 BE, 1 ES, 1 IE, 1 IT
07 North industrial regions
2 NL, 1 SE, 1 FI, 1 DE
08 North Italian and Spanish industrial regions
3 IT, 2 ES
09 French agro-industrial profile
5 FR, 2 AT
01 French food profile
10 FR, 1 IE, HU, SI
02 British low tech profile
4 UK
03 North low urbanised regions
4 AT, 3 NL, 2 SE
04 German low tech profile
6 DE, 1 AT, 1 NL, 1 IT, 1 GR
05 Italian textile profile
13 IT, 2 ES, CZ, SK, MT
06 Spanish profile
9 ES, 1 PT, CY
07 South agricultural profile
3 GR, 2 ES, 2 PT
08 East European profile
EE, LT, LV, PL
Source: Carrincazeaux and Gaschet (2006)
The main conclusions of the quantitative data analysis undertaken within EURODITE can be summarised as follows:
•
The typology of regional knowledge configurations does not fall into a simplistic high/medium/low medium classification of European regions. The results show an important degree
of variation also within knowledge-intensive regional configurations. This shows that several
distinctive paths to the knowledge economy appear to be viable, some focusing on a regional
scientific potential, others on education or regional consistency between industrial structure
and technological knowledge base.
•
Metropolitan regions and traditional industrial regions are the main examples of cross-national
profiles.
•
Most groups of regions are either national or dominated by regions belonging to the same
country. The main conclusion is that in spite of a considerable academic work underlying the
regional dimension of the knowledge economy, a significant share of the regional configurations of knowledge remains shaped by national regulations and institutions.
Moreover, further analysis demonstrates that the regional knowledge configurations are not able to
fully explain the main socio-economic performances of regions. The most important factor explaining the performance indicators for European regions is the performance of the country where they
are located. The correlation between knowledge intensity and regional performances is notable
when considering GDP regional growth (especially in most recent years), but does not extend
to employment growth and labour market outcomes. This is especially true for a few world-level
metropolitan regions exhibiting much contrasted trends.
42
National regulations shape fundamental factors such as labour market regulations and
policies, education, and infrastructure. In conclusion, a major issue relates to the ability of regional
economies to internalise the results of their investments, especially in knowledge creation and dissemination.
A complementary finding is provided by Antonelli, Patrucco and Quatraro.26 An empirical
investigation, based upon 138 European regions in the years 1996 through 2003, supports the
hypothesis that the concentration of innovation activities at the regional level yields diminishing
positive effects beyond a maximum, thus producing an inverted U-shaped relationship between
agglomeration of innovation activities and regional growth.
5.3. The relevance of sectoral contexts
It can be argued that regional growth and change is mainly the result of a sufficient level of ‘coherence’ between the regional knowledge configuration and the sectoral knowledge context. In
other words, specific regional configurations support some sectoral knowledge dynamics but not
others. In this case a central policy challenge is to identify which regional configurations stimulate
know-ledge creation/absorption in specific sectors.
Drawing from traditional concepts of evolutionary economic theory, we argue that sectoral
patterns of innovation are influenced by many different factors such as technological opportunities, appropriability conditions, technical change, sector specific competition patterns, relations to
customers, and inter-firm relationships.
Despite many interesting features, such approaches remain narrowly focused on ‘sectors’
and on technical change. A major contribution of recent literature, also developed within EURODITE, identifies three main cross-sectoral knowledge bases: synthetic, analytical and symbolic
knowledge bases. It is useful to consider the relationship between the regional knowledge creation
infrastructure and the sectoral-specific patterns of knowledge creation and use. The regional ‘performance’ of a sector is a question of coherence between the sector’s own knowledge base and
the know-ledge creation and diffusion set-up within a particular region. An example of this can be
seen in Table 5.2 where Asheim has proposed to combine the nature of knowledge bases and the
type of RIS governance structure in regions across Europe.
43
Table 5.2. Types of regional innovation systems and knowledge bases.
Type of knowledge
Type of RIS
Analytical/scientific
Embedded
(grassroots RIS)
Synthetic/engineering
Symbolic/creative
IDs in Emilia-Romagna
(machinery)
‘Advertising village’ Soho (London)
Barcelona as the
design city
Networked
(Network RIS)
Regional clusters – regional
university (wireless in Aalborg)
Regional clustersregional
technical university
(mechanical in BadenWürttemberg)
Regionalized
national
(dirigiste RIS)
Science parks/technopolis
(biotech, IT)
Large industrial complex
(Norwegian oil- and gasrelated industry)
Source: Asheim (2007: 234)
As indicated above, the regional knowledge configurations identified in EURODITE only
partially correlate with regional economic performances. A way to deepen the analysis is to connect the regional configurations with different sectors. Three sectors have been analysed. These
sectors, Biotech, ICT and Automotive, draw on different combinations of the knowledge types;
analytic, synthetic and symbolic (see Figure 5.3). For each European region the growth of each
sector has been measured. A statistical framework has been used to investigate whether sectoral
knowledge accumulation patterns depend on specific components of the regional knowledge
base, respectively the scientific system, the technological and innovation system, and the education and training system.
Figure 5.3. Dominant knowledge bases of selected industries.
Synthetic
Automotive
ICT
Biotech
Analytic
Symbolic
The results of the analysis clearly support the existence of a link between the knowledge
base of sectors and the regional knowledge configuration. The sector that is most firmly based on
analytical knowledge shows the strongest correlation with the knowledge base of regions, drawing
from the positive effects of the scientific regional system, the regional innovation system and the
education and training system. At the opposite end, the local dynamics of the automotive industry,
44
a sector predominantly using synthetic and symbolic knowledge, appear deeply disconnected
from the regional knowledge configurations identified. Interestingly the ICT sector, characterised
by an ‘in between’ knowledge base mixing analytical and synthetic components, seems to be only
partially tied to the knowledge profile of regional economies. It is particularly the qualification of the
labour force that has an effect here. Moreover, the analysis suggests that it is beneficial for regions
when additional knowledge resources from other sectors have been used. Composite knowledge
is central to the economic activities as it is shown through regional and firms studies of the
EURODITE project.
5.4. Conclusion and policy implications
The quantitative research regarding knowledge and regional development as part of EURODITE
has demonstrated that
•
a significant share of the regional configurations of knowledge remains shaped by national
regulations and institutions
•
regional knowledge configurations are not able to fully explain the main socio-economic
performances of regions
•
local growth and change is mainly the result of a sufficient level of consistency between the
regional knowledge configuration and the sectoral knowledge base
•
Cross-sectoral knowledge interactions are beneficial for the performance of the regional
knowledge economy
All in all this implies that the full participation of regions across Europe in the drive towards a more
knowledge-based economy will require further development of public policy. Although policy statements have routinely recognised the importance of addressing the specific challenges facing individual regions within a context of multilevel governance, more can be done in order to pursue this
in terms of policy practice. Some important steps that could contribute to such a development are
found in the list of policy challenges on the next page.
45
Policy challenges
•
Policies should aim to improve links between regional knowledge configurations and sectoral
knowledge contexts in individual regions
•
Policies should take into account that investing in science and technology resources does not
always lead to innovative and economic performances
•
Policies should reflect the diversity of regional knowledge configurations by
- avoiding copy-paste from regions perceived as being successful
- drawing on the full range of factors influencing growth by transgressing the internal
borders of public policy between tiers of government and functional areas of responsibility
•
Policies must be evidence-based, something which requires
- improved statistical resources for regional analysis
- more resources committed to policy preparation
Policy menu
At the regional/local level it is important to analyse the ‘fit’ between
•
the demand for economically useful knowledge from existing/future firms, sectors and technologies within the region
•
the supply of competences in the labour force and the research capabilities of knowledge
institutions
Research is often driven by other agendas, e.g. national priorities. Firms locate in particular localities for
many different reasons. And some types of economic activity deemed more attractive than others (e.g.
biotech, nanotech) are pursued by policy-makers. Policy preparation needs to take this into consideration: can useful links be created between existing firms and knowledge institutions within or outside
the region? Can commercialisation of knowledge within e.g. universities lead to viable new ventures?
Either way around, the fit between firms and appropriate knowledge within the region cannot be taken
for granted.
At the European level, the need for improved statistical resources about knowledge resources and
dynamics at the regional level is great. If more data had been available, an even better quantitative
analysis could have been undertaken.
46
6. Micro-Dynamics of Knowledge –
Firms, Organisations and their
Territorial Shaping
By Simone Strambach
Innovative firms shape the regions where they are located. Their actions directly influence regional
economic development and labour markets. In turn, firms’ competitive advantages rely on regional
and national capabilities, since their socio-economic embeddedness in networks and institutions
provides access to specialised knowledge sources. Over time this mutual relation leads to path
dependent developments and may foster positive as well as negative self-reinforcing effects. On
the one hand, clusters of highly innovative firms may evolve; on the other hand, a region may suffer from a lock-in of unfavourable conditions for innovative activities. For the creation, transfer and
exploitation of knowledge, geographical dimensions are important in two ways. Firstly, geographical proximity can make the exchange of tacit and explicit knowledge as well as the creation of new
knowledge easier, since proximal actors share the same social contexts, such as culture, language
or the understanding of technological and professional conventions. Secondly, the cultural and
institutional characteristics of a territory are formed over time. This determines knowledge production processes of individual and collective actors that are embedded in the geographical context.
The chapter focuses on the ways in which territorial dynamics of knowledge and micro-dynamics
of knowledge at the firm-level shape each other.
Why take a look at the firms?
•
Their innovative activities shape a region’s economic development
•
Identification of the relevant actor and interactions
•
From where do they source which knowledge?
•
No restriction to specific regions and sectors
To gain insights into the micro-dynamics of knowledge, the EURODITE project studies
knowledge dynamics from a new perspective to complement analysis at the aggregated meso-or
macro-level. The methodological tool in use is called ‘Knowledge biographies’, with which knowledge dynamics in innovation processes are investigated in-depth at the firm level. The focus of
this methodology is the innovation process itself and the interactions of various actors therein. By
examining the entire life-span of an innovative change process, a knowledge biography captures
the actors involved, their relationships and their institutional and geographical settings. The main
advantage of such an approach is to grasp the dynamism without being restricted to specific
geographical scales or levels of aggregation such as sectors or networks.27
The chapter proceeds in the following way: The second section sheds light on the qualita-
47
tive change in knowledge dynamics, arguing that so-called combinatorial knowledge dynamics are
gaining in importance. The third section returns to the micro-dynamics of knowledge at the level of
firms and organisations, looking at how they develop over time and interact with the territorial context. The fourth section presents main empirical results of case studies in Europe gained through
the creation of knowledge biographies. These conceptual and empirical results are reflected upon
in the final section with regard to policy implications.
6.1. Shift in Knowledge Dynamics
In recent years a knowledge perspective on innovation has gained interest. The term ‘knowledge
dynamics’ is increasingly used in the field of research focussing on ‘knowledge economics’.
Knowledge dynamics can be understood as the dynamics that are unfolding from processes of
the creation, using, transforming, and diffusing of knowledge. Innovations in products, services
and processes can be interpreted as visible results of knowledge dynamics. The concept is applied to the micro-level as well as to the macro-level, focusing on the transformation and shift of
knowledge as one of the driving forces for innovations.
Many organisational and institutional approaches refer to the cumulative character of
knowledge and to the development of specific knowledge bases through path-dependent learning
pro-cesses of actors. The notion ‘cumulative knowledge dynamics’ means that new knowledge
either builds on already existing knowledge or is directly dependent on existing knowledge. The
significance of cumulative knowledge dynamics has been acknowledged at different analytical levels: at the individual, the organisational and the territorial level. It has been shown at the firm level
that the existing knowledge base influences the type and the direction of innovation processes as
well as the ability to absorb new knowledge. Differences in the organisation of knowledge generation processes are also identifiable at the level of sectors. It has been argued that different sectors
are dominated by different types of knowledge, for example analytical, synthetic or symbolic,
knowledge bases.28
The EURODITE project argues that a qualitative shift in knowledge dynamics is under way.
It is argued that combinatorial knowledge dynamics will gain importance, and that these are connected with complex patterns of geographical and other kinds of proximity. Firms have economic
advantages being co-located but spatial proximity per se is not a sufficient condition that interactive learning and innovation take place. Non-spatial forms of proximity such as cognitive, organisational, social and institutional proximity are important to reduce uncertainty and foster interactive
learning. Micro-dynamics of knowledge emerge and are founded in interaction and communication processes of people. As the theory of knowledge has shown, these processes are influenced
strongly by cognitive proximity. Cognitions are mental categories or mental models which are
developed by people in interaction with their social and physical environment. They affect the
way in which actors perceive and evaluate situations. Cognitive distance is always present to the
extent that actors come from different environments and have different experiences. As a result
they never have identical knowledge. But a certain degree of cognitive proximity amongst actors is
essential for effective communication and to absorb new knowledge.
Knowledge creation and learning are facilitated when individuals or firms share a common
knowledge base which provides a certain degree of cognitive proximity. For instance institutional
48
proximity is existent when actors have the same cultural and institutional background in common
which in turn fosters the understanding. Organisational proximity develops where actors belong to
the same organisational arrangements such as networks, or firms support learning and knowledge
integration. Social proximity, indicated by trust based and friendship relationships, is seen as an
important means facilitating tacit knowledge exchange. Spatial proximity is often combined with
these other forms of proximity and the impacts of different dimensions of proximity can hardly be
considered as isolated. In particular the transfer of knowledge across large distances requires
non-spatial forms of proximity to be effective.29
A change in the way that scientific, social and cultural knowledge are produced was
already acknowledged in the mid-1990s. New knowledge is increasingly produced by a variety of
actors in complex problem-oriented situations in a cross-disciplinary way. It has been argued that
this new mode of knowledge production is replacing or reforming established institutions, disciplines, practices and policies. However, the implications of that change for the territorial organisation of knowledge dynamics have not been examined closely.
Apart from technological developments, the drivers of the shift towards combinatorial
knowledge dynamics seem to be the ongoing restructuring of global value chains, accompanied
by modifications in the organisation of innovation. There has been a shift to more open innovation
environments and the importance of external knowledge in innovation processes has become
more obvious in recent years. In parallel with this, business processes, knowledge-intensive service activities and – as the internationalisation of R&D activities shows – the process of knowledge
production itself, are affected by shifts towards modularisation, standardisation and of externalisation. These processes lead to a further fragmentation and expansion of value chains affecting
sector specific knowledge as well as generic knowledge on business functions such as marketing,
sales, production, etc.
Business processes and knowledge production processes create new relationships between many actors at different geographical scales. The new relationships are also changed with
regards to institutions and learning. Thus, innovation processes increasingly need to bring together
separate knowledge bases which are distributed to different actors within and outside the firm. A
characteristic feature of combinatorial knowledge creation processes is the participation of a
variety of different actors who fill different positions in the value chain and/or belong to different
sector contexts. In addition, actors are often located in many different places. Therefore, it is necessary to cope with many different technological, organisational and institutional interfaces.
A great deal of research has been undertaken on cumulative knowledge dynamics, their
mechanisms and processes. Institutions and complementary institutional arrangements are central
for the emergence of specific cumulative knowledge bases. Organisational routines, competencies
at the firm level, sectoral and region-specific institutions, as well as institutional configurations at
the national level, all contribute to the cumulative development of competencies and knowledge.
In contrast, knowledge generation processes of combinatorial knowledge have received little
attention so far, despite the fact that they are becoming more important for the development of
innovation.
49
6.2. Firm-level knowledge dynamics
Even though knowledge is increasingly a kind of commodity that can be traded and priced, the
production of knowledge is fundamentally grounded in complex social processes. Knowledge
creation requires learning and does not easily flow due to its tacit dimension and its process
character. Dynamics of knowledge unfold at the micro-level of actors. It is widely acknowledged
that effective communication, mutual understanding and the absorptive capacity of actors is
determined by the degree of their cognitive proximity. The learning dimension is essential and it
affects the perception and interpretation of actors, the knowledge exchange between them, and
their potential to create new knowledge together. Concerning the relationship between cognitive
distance and innovation it is pointed out that cognitive distance must be sufficiently small to allow
understanding – but at the same time sufficiently large to actually bring new knowledge.
Firms are key actors in knowledge dynamics
Firms are seen as essential stock holder of skills, experiences and knowledge. They interact dynamically with their environment, reshaping the environment, and even themselves
through knowledge creation.
Moving from the individual level to the collective level of firms and organisations, institutions play a decisive role. Firms provide the physical, social and resource-allocation structures that
can shape into competences the knowledge resources which are based on the experiences and
expertise of individuals. Organisational routines are important institutions for the coordination of
knowledge exchange and learning processes, which permit the integration of individual knowledge
bases. Building upon the competence and knowledge-based view of the firm – firms are seen
as essential repository of skills, experiences and knowledge. They interact dynamically with their
environment, reshaping the environment, and even themselves through knowledge creation.30 To
a greater or lesser extent, the mastery of innovation-oriented change of each firm depends on its
organisation, forms of management and strategy. Over time firms develop specific business routines which are often tacit in nature, but an important part of their competences. Business routines
are understood as the ways in which knowledge is found, validated, transformed and integrated
for specific purposes and applied to specific contexts. Competences reflect the individual experiences and skills as well as the distinct ways of doing tasks inside the firm. It follows that knowledge is not only embodied in people it is also embedded in organisations in the form of organisational routines. Research on the theory of the firm notes that some routines and competences
can be explained by local or regional forces that shape a firm’s capabilities and cannot easily be
replicated and transferred to other contexts. Economic geography points in the same direction by
showing the interaction between firms and territory through the institutional and relational embeddedness of firms over time. The corporate environment, apart from the market, plays an essential
role by affecting knowledge production. For instance established links to universities and research
institutes, long-term relationships to lead customers or trust based collaboration networks provide
important external knowledge sources.
50
The micro-dynamics of knowledge are determined by both the specific knowledge base of
firms and their competences and capabilities. Both evolve over time and have a path-dependent
nature as a result of collective learning processes and the cumulative nature of knowledge. In
addition, both are subject to change that results from interaction and learning processes. In view
of the ongoing globalisation and the increasing internationalisation of innovation, organisational
knowledge is seen as one of the important sources for the competitiveness of firms. Organisational theory and strategic management, in particular, place emphasis on the dynamic capabilities
of firms. These refer to an organisation’s ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and
external competences to deal with rapidly changing environments.
In comparison to cumulative knowledge production, the development of organisational
routines and governance structures that can control combinatorial knowledge creation processes,
seems to be far more complex. Due to the complexity and variety of actor constellations as well
as to a different composition or creation of separate knowledge stocks, near-unique contexts
emerge. There is, in other words, a crucial difference between cumulative and combinatorial
knowledge dynamics with regard to organisational forms, institutional arrangements and spatial
configurations. The analysis of the empirical case studies within the EURODITE project seeks to
contribute to a deeper understanding of different types of knowledge dynamics at the firm level
and their territorial organisation.
6.3. Micro-dynamics of knowledge and their territorial organisation
By following the knowledge dynamics of innovations in more than 60 case studies of different service and manufacturing industries, the complex labour division in knowledge production
has become clearer. EURODITE investigated firm knowledge dynamics in sectors such as food,
automotive, biotechnology, ICT, KIBS, new media and tourism located in 24 European regions.
The central questions
•
How do firms organize innovation processes?
•
How do firms access external knowledge?
•
Which actors are involved in the innovation processes and which knowledge is
sourced from them?
Over two thirds of the 759 analysed knowledge interactions involve actors who are external to the
innovating firm which clearly underlines the importance of labour division in knowledge production
in innovation processes.
Cumulative and combinatorial knowledge dynamics
If external knowledge sources and the production of combinatorial knowledge is becoming
more important for the development of innovation, it is particular interesting to analyse how firms
combine internal and external knowledge. Which types of knowledge do they source in innovation
51
pro-cesses? In which way do they bring together different knowledge types? Which actors are
involved in the innovation processes? Where are the actors located? What role does the regional
context play in the knowledge dynamics?
The EURODITE project differentiated three types of knowledge bases: analytical, synthetic
and symbolic which are characterised by a distinct mix of codified and tacit knowledge and by
dif-ferent learning modes (see Chapter 8). As innovation research has shown, industrial sectors
tend to vary systematically with regard to their knowledge bases. The latter refer to the key dimension of knowledge considered relevant for innovative activities of an industry. The empirical results
show that across the sectors studied in EURODITE most knowledge interactions were anchored in
only one particular knowledge base: either in analytical or synthetic or symbolic knowledge (Table
6.1). The highest share of the investigated knowledge interactions involves the type of knowledge
which also built the dominant sector specific knowledge base. For example, in the automotive
sector with a primarily synthetic knowledge base, nearly two thirds of the interactions in the innovation events encompass knowledge creation and exchange of the synthetic type of knowledge.
Compared for instance with tourism, a sector with a mainly symbolic knowledge base, here only a
share of 10% of the interactions are centred on synthetic knowledge, but two thirds are related to
the symbolic knowledge type. These results underline that the industry specific knowledge base
and knowledge specialisation still appear to strongly shape the innovation processes at the firm
level.
Table 6.1. Relative importance of knowledge types and their combination in knowledge
interactions.
Combinations of knowledge type
Knowledge types
Analytical
Synthetic
Symbolic
Analytical/
synthetic
Synthetic
/symbolic
All three
types
Auto
Bio
Food
ICT
KIBS
New media
Tourism
All cases
Combinations of types of knowledge have been counted as well, but they are less frequent
(Table 6.1). What is especially remarkable is the limitation of combinations in interaction processes. While the combination of two types of knowledge can be found in 20% of the interactions,
a triple combination is very rare. Not all types of knowledge seem to be equally ‘combinable’. The
‘two type combination’ is only found in the form of analytic/synthetic and synthetic/symbolic. The
combination of synthetic and symbolic knowledge was observable to some extent in all sectors,
except in ICT. This does not apply to the combination of analytic/synthetic knowledge types. In
particular, analytic knowledge cannot be combined easily with other types of knowledge in interaction processes between actors. It is not sourced in the KIBS sector and in tourism is found neither
52
in a single type of knowledge nor in a combinatorial way. Since analytic knowledge is based on
scientific methods and abstract considerations it may not show a large interface to other types of
knowledge. However, the combination of analytic and synthetic knowledge plays an important role
in new science-based sectors such as biotechnology.
What to know about micro-dynamics of knowledge
•
External knowledge is key for innovation: 2/3 of all interactions in innovation processes include external actors
•
During an innovation process, interactions are mainly between actors from the
same industrial background or the same business function
•
The combination of different knowledge types becomes more and more important
for innovative firms
•
Analytical (science-based) knowledge is most difficult to combine with other knowledge types
•
The way knowledge is created and combined depends on the sector/knowledge
base of the firm
During an innovation process, interaction is mainly between actors from the same industrial
background. The exchange and generation of knowledge is fundamentally grounded in complex
social communication and interaction processes. Cognitive distance among actors operating in
the same sector context may be smaller, fostering mutual understanding and making communication and knowledge integration easier. The same holds true for actors being professionally
engaged in similar business functions such as research, engineering, design, marketing or production. Through the restructuring of value chains and the growing outsourcing of business functions,
knowledge domains around them have becoming more complex. The findings underline that over
two thirds of the interactions in innovation processes took place within one domain. Knowledge
exchange and knowledge sharing between actors occur mainly in either research or marketing.
Interactions between actors related to exchange and integration of specialised knowledge in two
domains or even in three or more domains simultaneously are unusual (Table 6.2).
Table 6.2. Relative importance of the location of knowledge interactions in different horizontal knowledge domains.
One domain
Two domains
Three
domains
More than
three domains
Auto
Biotech
Food
ICT
KIBS
New media
Tourism
All cases
53
Sectoral differences indicate the impact of both the sector-specific organisation of knowledge formation and of sector-related institutions in knowledge dynamics at the micro-level. The
integration of knowledge from domains such as marketing, production, strategic planning and
finance in one interaction process was more often found in tourism compared to the automotive
sector. The emergence of value chains is not very advanced in the tourism sector. In particular the
systematic organisation of R&D, production, marketing as separate and specialised activities are
unusual in tourism. Service innovations are generally characterised by shorter life cycles and by
the connection of diverse knowledge types including symbolic, technological and organisational.
The value added of service innovations often results in the creation and communication of meanings and aesthetic values. Accordingly, the objective of knowledge production has highly intangible
qualities which imply the significance of learning by means of cross-fertilisation. That may create
the need in FKDs to combine domain knowledge under distinct time-horizons, as the findings
point out.
To sum up, by observing the innovation process in a knowledge biography our research
shows that combinatorial knowledge is becoming more and more important for innovative firms.
But it is also apparent that different types of knowledge and specialised expertise in business
processes can not be combined randomly amongst actors in interaction processes. If the knowledge bases of actors are too heterogeneous the investments to establish the necessary amount
of cognitive proximity for knowledge integration seem to be too high. Difficulties and barriers experienced in the knowledge transfer have so far received little attention in research on the knowledge
economy. The findings point out that specialisation and expertise in industry specific knowledge
and in functional business domains still constitute the most important basis for knowledge dynamics. Furthermore, KIBS firms seem to be important actors for the integration and combination of
separate knowledge bases as their presence in many cases across sectors indicates. By using
the knowledge biographies method the EURODITE project has produced a number of in-depth
qualitative observations on the time-space shaping of firm level knowledge dynamics.
The territorial shaping of firm-level knowledge dynamics
Following the innovative change processes in time and space, the multi-scalar nature of the knowledge interactions between firms and organisations can be observed in all the sectors studied.
Micro-dynamics evolve over time on the basis of various constellations of actors across the regional, national and international scale. By actor constellations we mean diverse actor types inside
and outside the firm; for example, customers, suppliers, cooperation partners, universities and research organisations, and their networks. Going in more detail into close and distant relationships,
a further commonality is the location of the more intense knowledge dynamics in regional and
national contexts. Distant Knowledge Dynamics refers to knowledge interactions only involving
international actors. Around a fifth of the investigated knowledge interactions, are distant relationships. This does not mean that in terms of the innovative change proximate knowledge activities
are more important compared to distant ones. Already in the first stage of many firm level knowledge dynamics region-external contacts are present. However, we can observe that the mobilisation of local or regional knowledge is a major feature of firm knowledge dynamics in all sectors.
Furthermore, the way place-specific resources are used by firms and other economic actors and combined with external and distance knowledge resources in innovative change proc-
54
esses, is also sector dependent. Distinct sectoral differences are obvious in both the scope and
the role of universities in knowledge dynamics as well as in the modes of knowledge interactions.
Especially pronounced is the collaboration in new sectors like biotechnology where analytical
knowledge is of importance. Likewise, in the automotive industry the change of institutional regulation triggers the development of new eco-efficient technologies and leads to further collaboration
with new scientific partners. It is noteworthy that actors with the deliberate function to create
knowledge, such as universities or research institutes, were not so often involved directly in firmlevel knowledge dynamics of the tourism sector compared to the automotive industry. In tourism
the participation of universities and research institutes seems to be a one-off occurrence. During
the change process universities produced a specified knowledge module like a business model or
provided training know-how. More pronounced is an institutionalised mode of knowledge interactions in the automotive industry. On the basis of formal organisations, for example established research centres or formal networks, firms and universities are continuously engaged in knowledge
creation. In the KIBS sector the interaction mode can be labelled as flexibly institutionalised on
the basis of informal personal relationships. Even though in the innovation events universities were
not directly involved, as it is the case in the automotive examples, personal contacts to students
and the integration of graduates with competences in highly specialised knowledge fields had a
decisive influence on knowledge dyna-mics of KIBS firms. Universities have an important role to
provide highly qualified human resources for KIBS firms.
The spatial organization of knowledge dynamics
•
The mobilization of regional knowledge is a major feature of firm knowledge
dynamics
•
The ways to combine distant and proximal knowledge depends on the sector
•
Knowledge interactions include a mix of proximal and distant actors: They are
multi-scalar in nature
•
A common organizational framework is a prerequisite for an intensified knowledge exchange
In many firm-level knowledge dynamics, new organisational structures had to be created
to facilitate the sharing of knowledge between collaborating actors. New organisational forms
were necessary in order to integrate diverse and specialised knowledge bases from many different
actors. For instance in one tourism case, diverse actors started with a decentralised network for
the development of a new joint booking system in North Jutland; later on the loose relations were
integrated into a private limited company. Even though it was not structured very hierarchically, it
seemed that the integration of various heterogeneous actors (e.g. municipalities, tourism offices,
travel agencies) in one organisation was a decisive prerequisite for an intensified knowledge
exchange. Taking the development of a new service product, a football route in the Ruhr Area, as
another example, the initial phases of the development have mainly been driven by one individual
– the inventor of the concept. By involving many different partners from within the region (universities, KIBS, municipalities, etc.) this person was able to establish a network mostly using personal
55
contacts to people he knew from previous interactions. However, in a later stage this situation has
changed and a more cohesive organisational framework was needed in order to carry out further
knowledge activities such as product development and marketing. Also in other sectors such as
automotive, new organisational forms were established over time. In Lower Saxony diverse actors
from universities and the automotive industry started with loose cooperation and in a later stage
a new research centre for vehicle technology was established. A formal organisation was decisive
to create a platform for the integration of specialised cumulative knowledge of research organisations, universities and firms and to motivate them to use their expertise for a new purpose. Even
within firms we observed the establishment of new organisational structures co-evolving with the
innovation. In the KIBS sector in Bratislava and in the Stuttgart region, firms create new service
products and new organisational departments were set up over time to bring them to the market.
The establishment of organisational proximity was important for an intensified knowledge
exchange in many firm-level knowledge dynamics. Even though the setting up of these organisational forms was often time consuming, the development of common norms and institutions
fostered further collective knowledge activities. In many cases new institution building was decisive
in creating a new quality in the constellation of actors which allowed the overcoming of cognitive
distance and the integration of varied knowledge bases. A common organisational framework can
probably be regarded as a prerequisite for trust-building and knowledge sharing, in cases where
actors fear the risk of knowledge loss or usually encounter each other as competitors and not as
partners. Another reason for the creation of new organisational entities is the issue of representation. An organisational representation of the new purpose was necessary in several cases to
acquire further financial funds from the public sector to realise the new knowledge production.
However, the creation of new organisational forms and organisational proximity does not automatically lead to cooperation and trust. Furthermore the empirical findings underline that the specific
organisational forms are characteristic. This is because the organisational forms are very much
determined by the types of actors involved, their respective knowledge bases and the quality of
their relationships. The knowledge biographies provide much empirical evidence that firm-level
knowledge dynamics themselves reshape the territorial configuration of economies in creating new
forms of organisation as part of the innovation process. Micro-dynamics of knowledge are reflecting an intersection between cumulative and combinatorial knowledge dynamics.
6.4. Some implications for public policy
Micro-dynamics of knowledge at the firm level which were investigated in EURODITE offer a great
deal of empirical evidence that distributed knowledge production is an important feature of the
knowledge economy. An important finding is that the debate on the global-local dichotomy misses
the complexity of knowledge interactions over time in innovative change. During the innovation
processes reported here, actors at the local, regional, national and international scale were included. It was rarely the case that actors act exclusively on one particular scale, locally or globally
in innovative change processes. Rather, knowledge interactions processes are characterised by
a mixed pattern of interactions at close and great distances, and by a multi-scalar nature. Hence,
from a policy perspective, the openness to external knowledge and temporary proximity are issues
which have to be taken into account in the design of flexible institutions. Such institutions can
foster knowledge production in interactions between many different actors.
56
Moreover, knowledge dynamics at the micro-level also display different time-horizons. In
knowledge domains where symbolic knowledge is a main input, knowledge creation has much
shorter cycles compared to analytical science based knowledge production. In addition, the
sectoral shaping of firm-level knowledge dynamics was also obvious. Sector-specific institutions
have a major impact on the organisation of knowledge interaction processes, even though sector
contexts are associated with more blurry boundaries. Consequently, it is important for knowledge
policy to maintain the space for different time-horizons and to be aware of diverse organisational
modes of knowledge production. The science and technology model, based on research and
development and the separation of knowledge exploration and exploitation, covers only one part
of knowledge processes leading to innovative changes in the knowledge economy.
The findings furthermore underline that those organisations with the deliberate function
to produce knowledge, such as universities, have to play a number of different roles which are
sometimes conflicting and difficult to combine. Universities, for example, have to provide excellence in basic research, engage in applied research, build the breeding ground of different types
of start-ups, and act as the impartial coordinator of regional networks. Knowledge-related policies
have to be aware of the increasing intersection of formerly separated institutional contexts such as
the science, technology and economy at the level of the university systems. Providing excellence
in basic research on a global basis requires different institutional framework conditions compared
to competing on the market with high-tech start-ups or as knowledge-intensive consulting agents
in complex applied problem-solving contexts. For policy-makers the challenge is to support these
varied roles with appropriate and flexible institutional conditions. It is an important issue for policy,
not to treat all universities under the same institutional regime, but rather being aware of that many
actor perspectives exist.
Following innovation-oriented change processes in time and space, cumulative as well as
combinatorial dynamics were found. Typical for the generation process of combinatorial knowledge is the bringing together and connection of different analytical, synthetic and symbolic knowledge bases of a variety of actors, who are often located in different technological, sectoral and
regional contexts. The findings underline that knowledge combination is a challenging process.
One major implication of the growing role of combinatorial knowledge processes is the growing
importance of integrative knowledge, necessary to coordinate and govern labour division in knowledge interactions. Knowledge dynamics at the micro level also reflect that geographical proximity
is an important but not sufficient mechanism to support knowledge creation and knowledge sharing among actors. In combinatorial knowledge dynamics, especially, the difficulties of implementing collaboration among firms are obvious. There are often barriers for innovative knowledge sharing. To overcome such barriers it requires other forms of proximity than geographical proximity; for
example, cognitive, organisational and social proximity among the actors. There is scope for policy
initiatives in supporting development of such proximities between actors.
In view of this, the bringing together of different sectors’ knowledge domains and knowledge bases emerges an increasingly important area in fostering innovation. Policy initiatives may
build on what is already present in a region, even if it is often a mixed collection of agricultural activities, many different industries with various specialisations, and many different service industries.
The intersection of several value chains at the regional level provides a rich repertoire for variation
that can be used by firms to recombine and adapt pre-existing knowledge bases for new require-
57
ments. Place-based institutional regimes are clearly important for the exploration and exploitation
of such combinatorial knowledge. Opening up new space for actors to collaborate in their own
distinctive fields beyond pre-defined high-tech issues such as nanotechnology or biotechnology
might help to foster the identification of ‘related variety’ between actors.
58
Policy challenges
•
In order to support innovation, policies should aim to foster the creation of combinatorial
know-ledge which is the combination of different analytical, synthetic and symbolic knowledge bases of a variety of actors, who are often located in different technological, sectoral
and regional contexts
•
Policies should support the knowledge exchange between heterogeneous actors, even if
this does not immediately lead to economic value added. This holds true especially for actors from very different knowledge fields. Despite the fact that much time is needed in order
to build up a common knowledge base, the outcome of these interactions might set further
knowledge dynamics in motion
•
Policies should consider that knowledge producing actors such as universities have to play
a number of different roles which sometimes are conflicting and difficult to combine. Hence
policy should take into account, not treating all institutes in the same way but to bear in mind
their respective role as knowledge organisation
Policy menu
For the creation of combinatorial knowledge it is useful to
•
give education/training a more interdisciplinary character
•
create new proximities (organisational, cognitive, etc.) by supporting projects which aim to
connect actors, firms and networks with different sectoral backgrounds
•
support projects involving long-term extra-regional interaction
To support regional knowledge institutes and their role as knowledge sharing organisation in a
focused way it is important to
•
identify the interfaces between universities (research institutes) and the region specific economy
•
implement theme-specific forums and platforms where economic and scientific actors can
interact
•
support the transfer of knowledge from humanities and social sciences more emphatically.
Compared to technology transfer the diffusion of symbolic knowledge, for instance, is not
much covered by policy initiatives
59
7. Knowledge Anchoring in European
Regions: Policy Implications
By Laura James, Margareta Dahlström and Lise Smed Olsen
Over the last twenty years the importance of innovation and knowledge transfer to regional
economic development has been increasingly emphasised. Policy-makers from a European to
local level have come to see the development of a ‘knowledge-based economy’ as a prime goal.
Factors influencing innovation and learning have therefore been studied more thoroughly. It has
been common to argue that physical proximity between regional actors facilitates certain kinds of
knowledge exchange including social interaction and labour market knowledge spillovers, particularly of tacit knowledge. The importance of formal and informal institutions which support innovation and collaborative competition has also been stressed.
Policy initiatives have broadened from the attraction of inward investment and provision
of R&D infrastructure to include the development of links between firms and regional institutions.
These approaches share an emphasis on the development of intra-regional capacities and resources in the expectation that this will improve regional competitiveness in the global economy.
However, more recently the importance of extra-regional relations has come to the fore. Most firms
are unable to generate or source all of the economically useful knowledge they require from within
their ‘home’ region. New models of knowledge dynamics have been developed; for example, the
idea of local buzz and global pipelines, or different models of knowledge anchoring.
As general idea, knowledge anchoring refers to the ability of an organisation or territory
to access external knowledge and make use of it in some way. Knowledge can, for example, be
used through its application, economic exploitation, recirculation, or recombination. A complementary concept is absorptive capacity which describes a cluster or region’s capacity to access,
diffuse and exploit knowledge acquired from outside the cluster or region itself. However, absorptive capacity explains the conditions that must apply for the knowledge to be anchored and not
the actual pro-cesses through which anchoring takes place: absorptive capacity may remain
unrealised. We argue that we must distinguish anchoring processes from absorptive capacity. In
this chapter we build on the following definition of knowledge anchoring:
Knowledge anchoring refers to knowledge coming from outside a region, which
somehow ‘sinks in’ and is re-circulated within the region. By this we mean processes
by which knowledge is used by other firms/institutions within a region (not just the
one that found/adopted the knowledge from an external source). This might include
developing the new knowledge, or recombining it with existing knowledge, as well as
general diffusion within the region.
60
We aim to explore the ways in which public policy might encourage and support knowledge anchoring. We use qualitative case study reports describing overall patterns of knowledge
generation, use and circulation which were completed as part of the EURODITE project. These are
based in 18 regions and seven main sectors are included: tourism; food and drink; biotechnology;
new media; automotive; ICT and knowledge intensive business services (KIBS). A full list of the
reports analysed and their authors is given in Appendix 1.31
The structure of the chapter is as follows. We start by introducing some key concepts
regarding knowledge interactions and regional development. Particular attention is paid to extraregional interactions and why these are important. We then introduce the idea of knowledge
anchoring as a useful tool to analyse the different mechanisms by which knowledge flows into
regions and is re-circulated within them. We have identified four main ‘channels’ through which
knowledge was anchored in the EURODITE case studies: events; work-place or job-related mobility; acquisition of codified knowledge; and firm-level interactions. Here we present an analysis of
policy involvement in each of these channels, comparing and contrasting anchoring processes in
different sectors. In the concluding sections we explore policy implications in light of the findings.
7.1. Approaches to stimulate knowledge interactions and regional
development
In this section we introduce trends and concepts within the field of regional development in the
knowledge economy. As discussed in Chapter 2 the emphasis over the last twenty years has shifted towards the development of ‘soft’ institutional support to develop economically useful knowledge within regions. More recently, the academic and policy communities have been increasingly
concerned to understand how external knowledge can be accessed and successfully used
and recombined with regional expertise. Before developing the discussion about extra-regional
resources and relations, we will highlight a few key points from the discussion of internal regional
capacities in Chapter 2.
Focus on intra-regional interactions
The key concepts and policy approaches focusing on internal regional capacities are systems of
innovation, learning regions, triple-helix and clusters. Systems of innovation approaches see learning and innovation as non-linear and interactive processes which involve collaboration between
firms and other institutions such as universities, financial institutions, and development agencies.
Successful regional innovation systems are characterised by formal collaborations between firms
and a strong institutional structure, including universities and research institutes. Under the concept of learning region, interactive innovation and, in particular, social capital, are also emphasised.
The triple-helix approach argues that strong relationships between universities, firms and
government agencies are crucial to encourage innovation within regions. The role of universities
is particularly emphasised. Science parks and incubators are examples of the infrastructure that
is often part of public policies supporting triple-helix knowledge transfers. In line with a (slow)
move within innovation policies from a focus on technological innovations to a broader innovation
concept including services’ innovation, triple-helix thinking too has become more widely used than
narrowly focusing on technology.
61
Clusters are one of the most popular approaches to regional economic development. The
cluster concept has many competing definitions that tend to focus on connections between firms
and associations that are located close to each other. The more intense the interactions between
the firms and other actors, the more productive and competitive the firms are. The intensity of
interaction is increased if the firms concerned are located close to each other.
Cluster policy initiatives are the most popular approaches within regional development.
Such policies require the identification of specialised agglomerations of economic activity which
are then targeted for support, usually in the form of R&D assistance, training, capital investment,
and attempts to encourage cluster identity.
In practice, innovation systems, learning regions, triple-helix and cluster approaches all
focus on innovation, knowledge transfer and high-tech activities. Almost every regional development agency seems intent on developing an ICT, biosciences or other high-tech clusters, whether
or not their region has any existing competency in those areas.
Extra-regional resources and relations
Some of the assumptions that policy components of regional innovation systems, learning regions,
triple-helix and clusters are based on have been undermined in recent years. Intra-regional knowledge interactions are important but not sufficient for successful innovation and regional development. Increasingly, the combinations of networks and collaborations at different geographical
scales are stressed. These knowledge interactions include local and regional links as well as
exchanges at international levels. The most innovative city-regions are highly networked across all
these scales. Contacts outside the region which complement local interactions are very important
in the context of intensifying international competition and accelerating technological change.
There has been some discussion of the relative importance of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ relations and sources of knowledge. It is also recognised that this varies between different regional
innovation systems and clusters. In some regional innovation systems, innovation is based mainly
on localised learning without much interaction with research institutes, universities and other
actors. Yet in other cases, policy interventions have formalised and strengthened the region’s
‘learning’ infrastructure, for example, research institutes, local universities or vocational training organisations. Through their interactions with these institutions, local firms can gain access to wider
pools of knowledge which may help the region to avoid ‘lock-in’. A third type of regional innovation
system is more integrated into national or international innovation systems. In these cases, the
range of actors tends to be narrower; for example, interactions with R&D functions of universities,
research institutes and corporations. The collaboration is primarily on specific innovative projects.
Science parks, which often have weak links with their home region but intense international relations between specialists, are examples of this. The specific institutional mix in a region determines
its ability to access and use knowledge from ‘outside’.
Since different types of regions face different issues, it is important that policy reflects this.
Some regions have low levels of clustering and a weak institutional endowment, while others lack
interaction and networks and face situations of ‘lock-in’. The differences will lead to variation in the
relative importance of stimulating incremental or radical innovations, an orientation towards endogenous or exogenous companies and knowledge suppliers, and the fostering of internal or external
networking.
62
In this chapter, we aim to explore the ways in which policy initiatives can support the
in-flow and recirculation of knowledge (a process we term knowledge anchoring) in a variety of
regions and sectors. Many of the processes and policies discussed above may be relevant for
knowledge anchoring, especially as far as the re-circulation of knowledge is concerned.
Perhaps the most widely known theory of the combination of external and internal knowledge is the ‘buzz and pipelines’ model which describes a situation in which intense local interactions are combined with distant relations to prevent lock-in and circulate knowledge from outside
a region or cluster. Buzz is defined as ‘a thick Web of information, knowledge and inspiration that
circulate between the actors of a cluster’.32 Over-reliance on ‘local’ buzz is not desirable, and
should therefore be combined with extra-regional linkages or ‘pipelines’ which are required to
access knowledge about potential markets and new technologies. It has been argued that local
buzz between partners tends to consist of unplanned communications because of the informal
and trusting relationships between partners. Knowledge transfers through the pipelines are more
structured because of the greater distance and more formalised relations.
Recently the distinction between unplanned buzz and structured pipelines has been
criticised. A study of knowledge interactions in life science communities has showed that ‘buzz’
is carefully planned and rationalised by actors at different stages of the innovation process.33 It is
argued that the exact processes by which knowledge is transferred across different geographical
scales cannot be reduced to a local buzz/global pipeline dichotomy. On the contrary, there needs
to be a distinction between different geographical scales. Our own analysis indicates that there is
no simple division between the kinds of processes and interactions that take place within regions
and those which are national or international in nature. Furthermore, the connection between the
inflow and recirculation of knowledge is not necessarily straightforward. Firms have many reasons
to retain knowledge rather than sharing it with potential competitors. Studies have shown that
leading firms that have accessed extra-regional knowledge do not circulate this new knowledge
within the clusters as freely as the concept of buzz indicates.
Instead of local buzz and global pipelines we use the terms in-flow and re-circulation of
knowledge. In-flow and re-circulation of knowledge are not limited to any particular geographical scale. We build on the idea of knowledge channels, which are the processes or mechanisms
by which knowledge from outside a region is accessed and then re-circulated. A wide range of
actors, institutions and processes have been identified as potential communication channels. To
sum up, knowledge channels are the mechanisms by which knowledge flows into regions and is
subsequently re-circulated. We call this process knowledge anchoring. The aim of our analysis in
this chapter is to explore the ways in which public policy might support anchoring processes, with
a particular focus on the creation or support of in-flow and re-circulation channels. Before turning
to this analysis we briefly explain the methodology used in the research.
How the analysis was carried out
Our analysis is based on 18 reports describing patterns of knowledge generation, use and circulation in European regions produced within the EURODITE project.34 Seven main sectors are
inclu-ded: tourism; food and drink; biotechnology; new media; automotive; ICT and knowledge
intensive business services (KIBS). Two case studies examine photonics and nanotechnology re-
63
spectively. The case studies have been constructed on the basis of secondary analysis of regional
statistics, reviews of existing studies of each region, plus printed and digital media. In addition, the
research teams undertook qualitative interviews with key individuals from policy-making and public
institutions, industrial associations, research organisations, development agencies, regionally
significant firms and education institutions. The description of significant knowledge interactions
across and within different territories contained in each of the case studies has enabled us to conduct a se-condary analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which knowledge enters
and is re-circulated within regions. We have grouped these processes into four main channels:
•
Events
•
Work-place or job-related mobility
•
Acquisition of codified knowledge
•
Firm-level interactions
The channels are ways in which knowledge comes into a region and is re-circulated within the
region. Knowledge can come in via one channel and be re-circulated through another. In other
cases, the same channel is used both for accessing the extra-regional knowledge and for the
recirculation of the knowledge. The four channels and examples of the knowledge inflow and
recirculation processes are given in Table 7.1.
Table 7.1. Knowledge inflow and recirculation channels.
Events
Workplace/job-related
mobility
Acquisition of codified
knowledge
Firm-level interactions
•
Conferences
•
•
Online research
•
•
Industrial fairs
•
Supplier/client
relations
•
Seminars
Reading
publications
•
•
Licensing
•
Collaborative
pre-competitive
research
Buying patents
•
Co-development
of products
•
Meetings of
professional
organisations
•
Moving to new
employer
Freelancers and
consultants
•
KIBS activities
•
Secondments/
training in
different
workplace
The various individual processes collected in each of the channels may take place under
a variety of circumstances. Taking the example of workplace or job-related mobility, this might include individuals immigrating, employees moving within an organisation, a firm setting up a branch
plant, employees from another region visiting on a business trip for a few days or working as a
consultant in a region for a longer period. Different processes might take place together or support
each other in various ways. Face-to-face meetings, for example, might be facilitated by virtual
online interactions, or the purchase of codified knowledge may be preceded by a visit to a region
by the owner of a patent to market their knowledge.
64
It is important to note that although both inflow and recirculation must be linked in order for
anchoring to take place, this need not be within one channel nor need it happen simultaneously.
Indeed the case studies analysed here are characterised by the intersection and combination of
different channels over time. Thus, for example, knowledge might flow into a region via events and
then be re-circulated via workers moving between firms.
7.2. Analysis of policies related to anchoring
In the following sections we set out the ways in which public policy impacts upon the four channels identified in the EURODITE case studies. We emphasise that we are concerned with identifying existing regional-level policies which have had a direct impact on knowledge inflow and recirculation channels. In reality, a much wider variety of policies, governance structures and regulatory
frameworks affects the operation of these channels. We will show the importance of understanding different channels for designing policies to support knowledge anchoring.
Events
This channel comprises organised and temporary events of different kinds; for example, fairs, conferences, seminars or study tours, in which people meet physically and interact. Events bring together people who would not otherwise meet. This is a characteristic that distinguishes them from
ordinary meetings which are held regularly within an organisation. Events combine both planned
knowledge transfer with unplanned interactions. Events are specifically designed to bring people
together and often represent a place to interact with people from different regions, sectors or
industries. A key characteristic is the opportunity for chance interaction where complementary
knowledge interactions can take place. Events are characterised by intense knowledge interactions because they are short-lived. At the same time, they can be used to initiate more long-lasting
relationships.
The events channel is targeted by policy initiatives in several EURODITE case studies.
These are mainly of two types: funding for participants to take part in events such as conferences
and fairs outside the region; and funding and/or organising events within the region to attract
knowledge from elsewhere. Events facilitate both the in-flow of knowledge and its recirculation,
which can take place at the events themselves, and when participants subsequently interact with
other people, firms and organisations.
Organising and funding events in the region. Events were common in all New Media case
studies. There are several examples of public policy funding the organisation of events specifically to attract knowledge to the region or raise the profile of the region. The annual international
media convention ‘Medientage München’ in Bavaria, the annual conference ‘Nordic Game’ in
Skåne (funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers) that attracts over 1 000 delegates from around
the world, and the ‘Serious Virtual Worlds Conference’ and ‘Digital Event’ in the West Midlands
(funded by the regional development agency) are such examples. Within the Munich film cluster
there are a number of other types of events that are important for interactions in the industry and
that are supported by public policies. These include the Bavarian Movie Awards, the Bavarian
Television Award and the Munich Film Festival. Knowledge interaction of many sorts takes place
in connection with such events, particularly the exchange of ideas about branding and market
trends.
65
Within scientific and high tech manufacturing case studies there are also policies that
support the organisation of events to attract extra-regional knowledge. In Aquitaine, an international convention ‘Invest in Photonics’ which focuses on information in market trends and the
financing of development projects is supported by public funds. It was first held in 2008 and
specifically aims to support the development of networks for business opportunities with partners
outside the region and to access marketing knowledge. The event constitutes a means to rapidly
access non-local and worldwide knowledge about market trends and potential business opportunities. It is organised by the chamber of commerce, Aquitaine Lasers Photonique & Applications
Association and French Atomic Energy Commission.
Funding participation and co-funding events outside the region. Public funding for actors to
access extra-regional knowledge through attendance at events outside the region includes an
interesting example from the Food and Drink sector. The Bornholm division of the European interregional network association Regional Culinary Heritage, Bornholm Culinary Network, organised
four study tours to Sweden and Iceland in the 1990s. At least one of these was organised by a
Local Action Group as part of an EU funded Leader+ programme. Study tours to other regions are
an interactive type of event that promotes the inflow and recirculation of knowledge about smallscale food production, farm shops, and distribution channels, for example.
Summary
Policy initiatives to facilitate events were common, perhaps because events are relatively time and cost effective ways of bringing people together.
Based on the case studies, events mainly involve trade fairs which provide
an arena for participants to exchange marketing knowledge, meet clients and in
some cases to find collaboration partners. Conferences which involve the exchange
of codified knowledge were also evident; however this type of event was not mentioned very often. Study tours and trade missions, which involve learning from foreign firms and/or collaboration initiatives, were other types of events evident in the
case studies.
Regional initiatives are focused on organising events within regions attracting firms and actors from outside, whereas national funding initiatives tend to mainly
provide support for national actors to participate in events in other countries.
Among the New Media cases there are also examples of public funding for individuals
to attend events outside the region or to co-fund such events in themselves in order to access
know-ledge from outside the region. In the UK, for example, both national and regional public
funding has been made available for this purpose. The government agency UK Trade & Investment provides funding for trade missions to games development markets and to attend trade
events, and the regional development agency in the West Midlands has provided funding for
66
individuals in the game development sector to attend fairs such as the ‘London Game Festival’. In
the case of the new media in Skåne, public funding through the Nordic Game Program has been
made available for game developers to attend international fairs and conferences such as the
‘Game Developer’ conference in San Francisco and ‘Game Connection’ in Lyon. Regional public
co-funding, and co-funding from the Structural Funds, has also been made available through the
network Moving Media Southern Sweden (MMSS) that has co-financed the ‘Nordic Lounge’ at the
‘Electronic Entertainment Expo’ in Los Angeles to help moving media firms from Skåne to market
themselves and find collaboration partners and investors.
Work-place or job-related mobility
Workplace and job-related mobility refers to the ways in which knowledge comes into and is circulated within regions via individual people. It includes the employees of firms or other organisations,
freelancers and consultants as well as jobseekers. The movement of workers between firms has
often been characterised as a form of non-deliberate knowledge ‘spillover’. However, this channel
includes a wide range of worker mobility, including the circulation of freelancers and consultants
between firms, secondments or training programmes, as well as the immigration of workers from
outside the region or country. Some of these forms of mobility depend on deliberate transfer of
knowledge, either through the movement of knowledgeable workers into a region or of workers
travelling outside a region and then returning with new knowledge.
Although the mobility of workers is an important way of transferring knowledge into regions
and re-circulating it, there were relatively few regional-level policies that directly aimed to facilitate
this movement. An exception is policies that encouraged collaboration between firms in general.
The absence of more specific policies may be because the labour market is already seen to work
efficiently, because firms are very sensitive about employees leaving and transferring their knowledge to rivals, and also because international immigration policy is controlled at a national level.
The main exceptions are attempts to attract very highly skilled workers, especially in scientific
fields, plus some support for networking which particularly helps sectors such as new media
where the continual circulation of freelancers and micro-businesses is crucial.
Freelancers and consultants. Our analysis of the case studies showed that the circulation
of freelancers and consultants on a regional, national and even international scale is one of the
most important channels for the inflow and recirculation of knowledge, particularly in new media,
ICT and KIBS. In media industries, such as film-making and computer games, freelancers and
micro-businesses are very important as work is usually organised on a project basis with different
groupings coming together at different times. The mobility of freelance workers and firms’ ability to
identify and negotiate contracts with them is crucial. There are some examples of policies which
encouraged the transfer of knowledge via these workers.
The regional film fund in Skåne, for example, encourages the transfer of knowledge from
temporary film workers who come to the region by providing public funding to international production companies who take part in film projects. The regional film fund can only be accessed by
production companies who also employ staff living in the region. In addition, training programmes
for film workers have been put in place to support the regional supply of skilled film workers. However, one of the most important ways of learning film work – and making contacts which secure
further jobs – is through actually taking part in film productions. The requirement that production
companies who want to access regional funding must employ workers living in Skåne therefore
67
supports the transfer of knowledge between regional workers and film workers from other regions
in Sweden and from overseas.
Networking between new media firms and freelancers is also supported through the provision of incubators and institution of cluster organisations. The incubator Minc in Skåne, partly
focu-sing on new media, and the Serious Games Institute in the West Midlands are examples
among the case studies. These are discussed further below. The development of physical infrastructure, such as incubators or research facilities is also an important way of attracting external
firms and workers to a region. In the case studies this is exemplified by the Bavarian Film Centre,
which provides office space and services, and the Serious Games Institute at Coventry in the West
Midlands, which provides subsidised office space and research and marketing services, and the
creation of government research facilities in the photonics case-study in the Aquitaine region.
We found no examples of policies which targeted the KIBS sector specifically. However,
there were examples of KIBS or individual consultants being hired by regional development agencies to help develop particular industries by working with individual firms to source or develop new
expertise. On Bornholm, for example, a ‘food ambassador’ was employed in 2004-2005 to aid
local firms in the promotion and branding of Bornholm on the national market thereby increasing
the attractiveness of the region for the food industry. This was funded under the EU LEADER+
2000-2007 program. In the early 1990s, as part of the establishing a regional agricultural development and innovation centre, two consultants were employed. An important part of their work was
to look abroad for examples of new small-scale quality food production and distribution and try to
diffuse best-practice to local entrepreneurs who were engaged in establishing new food and/or
drink production on the island.
Attracting firms and workers. There were several examples of policies to attract highly
skilled workers or promote new start-up firms in particular regions. These policies specifically aim
to bring in new knowledge and to re-circulate and further develop existing expertise via spin-off
firms. These initiatives are often lead by cluster organisations and/or sponsored by regional development agencies.
In the Centro biotechnology case study, for example, a partnership between the Municipality of Cantanhede and the Centre of Neurosciences and Cell Biology (CNC), a large national
excellence centre linked with the University of Coimbra, aimed to encourage the return of young
Portuguese researchers who had left the country to work abroad. The partnership deliberately
recruited young academics from excellence research centres in Harvard and MIT to work in new
research and commercialisation centres at the science park in the region.
The Venice nanotechnology cluster organisation (Veneto Nanotech) also attempts to
encourage international in-migration of talented researchers. Here the mechanism is the funding
of short-term fellowships for researchers in physics, chemistry, statistics and modelling. Researchers are recruited from all over Europe and share facilities and work with Italian researchers in a
nanotechnology facility and the regional universities. The cluster organisation has also initiated a
‘best business plan’ competition with a prize of start-up capital, office and laboratory space at
incubators/science parks for the winners, thereby encouraging in-migration and development of
specialist knowledge.
Many other cluster-type organisations in the case studies offered support to new startups or spin-off firms, in an attempt to encourage the in-flow and recirculation of workers. In the
68
Bavaria biotechnology case study a networking organisation called BioM AG has a seed-capital
fund which holds investments of approximately €11 million. Between 1997 and 2007 BioM AG
has invested in approximately 40 start-up companies, mainly in the Munich area. This organisation
has shifted from focussing on consulting and representation of the industry’s interests to being
a more active player. It is also closely linked to another state sponsored venture capital provider,
BayernKapital.
There were some cases where policy directly supported the mobility of workers. This was
the case in the West Midlands automotive case study, where regional universities were involved in
Knowledge Transfer Partnership schemes which saw graduates undertake three-year subsidised
work placements at regional firms after completing their degrees.
The largest scale example of public intervention among the case studies, however, is the
relocation of a hundreds of government researchers, engineers and technicians, specialising in
high powered lasers from Paris to Bordeaux. This was the result of the construction of a Mega
Joule Laser there in the late 1990s. It created a pool of approximately 700 employees of the
French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) within the Aquitaine region of France. The CEA deliberately encouraged the exchange of knowledge between the CEA laboratory and other research
institutions through the creation of a new collaborative research facility with the University of Bordeaux. Government and university researchers worked together there and research fields related
to photonics were developed within the region. Following the initial establishment of the CEA
facility and migration of employees from the Paris region, further mobility within the local academic
labour market was encouraged. As contacts were made between the different institutions in the
region working in the field of photonics, new spin-off firms were established.
Summary
The case studies provided some examples of policies to encourage the immigration
of ‘star’ workers to incubators and science parts, as well as supporting in-coming
business start-ups by providing office space, research facilities and services. We do,
however, question the degree to which this supports knowledge anchoring overall, as
these institutes often have weak links with the wider region. Nonetheless, recirculation
of knowledge within incubators and science parks is a key rationale for such institutions. There are also examples of direct support for mobility of knowledge workers
in the shape of graduate placement schemes in firms. In some sectors, such as the
new media industry, activities are project based. They depend on networking between
firms and freelancers and job-related mobility is an built-in characteristic of this sector.
Policy support focussed on arranging and funding participation at events to stimulate
networking.
Acquisition of codified knowledge
This channel refers to the acquisition of knowledge in codified form; for example, licenses, patents, computer software or textual documents. This channel was not discussed at great length in
69
many of the case study reports, probably because this kind of knowledge transfer takes place so
regularly in everyday situations that it is taken for granted. However, it is a significant way in which
knowledge can flow into regions and be re-circulated within them. There are few examples among
the case studies of directly related policies. The examples mentioned are those related to cluster
organisations or regional development agencies scanning the Internet for technical innovations,
scientific developments or new products, services or processes in order to inform regional firms
and other organisations and keep them up to date with the latest developments in their field.
Thus, the creation of publicly-funded ‘gatekeeper’ organisations was the most significant type of
policy for this channel. The provision and development of digital infrastructure, such as high-speed
broadband networks is important but mentioned very rarely in the case studies except those
related to ICT.
Scanning for new knowledge. Cluster organisations and incubators often in proximity
to, or as an integrated part of, a university serve as gatekeepers of externally sourced codified
knowledge in many of the case studies. The nanotechnology case study based in the Venice
region highlights the cluster management organisation Veneto Nanotech. This organisation helps
to look for new scientific discoveries and monitors the latest advancements in R&D in order to
see what can be applied or further developed by regional companies. Veneto Nanotech maintains
close relationships with companies located within VEGA, a regional science and technology park,
to assist with the commercialisation of new applications which they have identified through their
desk-based research. The organisation helps regional firms to identify relevant external partners
and then facilitates the initiation of collaborations through meetings and events.
A different example is the participation of Baden-Württemberg’s regional development
agency in the European BeLCAR (Bench Learning in Cluster management for the Automotive sector in European Regions) network in which five regions have joined forces to improve the actions
and innovative capacities of their automotive industries. The cluster organisations and regional
development agencies are involved in distance learning processes which support the understanding of the success factors and weaknesses of clusters in the sector through the exchange of good
practices.
In the case studies from the tourism sector, the creation of gatekeeper institutions, in the
form of public Destination Management Organisations (DMOs), was the predominant mode of
public policy intervention. These institutions diffuse external knowledge to SMEs through formal
networks of their members. This was particularly important in North Jutland, but also in some form
present in the Skåne and Antalya case studies. The DMOs scan for relevant product or service innovations in other regions and countries and also perform some analysis of international consumer
markets. A similar role is played by the regional food development centre on Bornholm which focused on the acquisition of knowledge about marketing and branding. However, the acquisition of
codified know-ledge about food production techniques has also been supported by the consultants employed by the centre and study visits organised by Bornholm Culinary Network.
70
Summary
Public policies facilitating the acquisition of codified knowledge mainly involve research
and/or scanning for economically-relevant knowledge. These are supported by regional development agencies and other gate-keeping organisations such as incubators. Higher education institutions can be said to specialise in the production of codified knowledge and triple helix initiatives can therefore contribute to this channel. The
provision and development of digital infrastructure, such as high-speed broadband
networks, is important to gain access to codified knowledge. However, it is only rarely
mentioned in the case studies, and only in connection to the ICT cases. This indicates
that there could be a role for public policy in enhancing digital infrastructure and thereby
the searching capabilities of regional firms.
Firm-level interactions
This channel is concerned with the knowledge exchanges that take place as part of firm-level
relationships. These might include contract research and development, consulting, supplier-buyer
relationships, technology alliances and collaborative networks. The main kinds of interactions
in the case studies are networked or direct interactions between firms, consulting by KIBS and
knowledge supply by universities.
The case studies provide many examples of policies that relate to the channel firm-level
interactions. This type of interaction includes not only firms but also other organisations, for
example, higher education institutions and public bodies of various types. It is possible to identify
two partly overlapping types of policy intervention relating to knowledge anchoring through this
channel: mediators and triple-helix initiatives.
Mediator policies. Mediator policies are initiatives where public bodies play an active role
in trying to develop or stimulate interaction between different types of actors such as firms, higher
education institutions, and chambers of commerce. There is a palette of such initiatives that can
be labelled cluster, network or platform policies, and in some sectors have specific labels, such as
DMOs within tourism.
Mediator policies focus on building links between different actors within a region, highlighting the fact that most of these policy interventions target the recirculation side of anchoring. The
way that they tap into extra-regional knowledge is less explicit. One way in which extra-regional
knowledge can come into the networks is through the sharing of such knowledge by the individual
actors using other channels, such as attending a conference or through the use of KIBS firms.
More explicitly, regional networks can access extra-regional knowledge when they actively link actors from outside the region to the networks themselves.
As discussed above, cluster policies of different types are widely used by public policy
organisations to promote trust and stimulate collaborative knowledge interactions in networks of
firms and other actors. In the case studies there are examples of cluster policies, for example, in
the Aquitaine, Bavaria and Veneto biotech cases which have an outward looking component to
71
their activities. In these cases cluster organisations or network agencies play a decisive role as
gatekeepers. These mediators focus on building regional clusters, but also on how to strengthen
international ties between biotechnology firms, thereby facilitating the development of extra-regional knowledge networks. Even though the focus is on strengthening links within the region, we
can see that these policy initiatives do not fall into the trap of focussing too much on intraregional
interrelationships at the expense of links at other geographical scales. It is also interesting to see
that several cluster initiatives are the result of multi-level governance in the sense that they are
coordinated and/or funded by policy bodies at a variety of scales. The Venice nanotech cluster, for
example, acts as a mediator between entrepreneurs, firms, and academic scientists and researchers. It is the result of a coordinated set of policies developed by the Italian government and the
regional administration. The organisations work towards improving the technological and scientific
content of traditional products in the firms by stimulating exchange between industry and research
including access to extra-regional scientific and technological knowledge.
The examples from these different sectors all include cluster, network and platform organisations with active higher education institutions and/or research institutes. An exception to this is
the food cluster organisation on Bornholm in Denmark. There is no higher education institution on
Bornholm in this field, so the food cluster here builds on firms, industry organisations and policy
actors. It is also directly linked up with organisations and networks in other parts of Europe to tap
into region-external knowledge and facilitate recirculation of knowledge relating to small-scale food
production, farm shops, and distribution channels. However, the cluster is focused on internal linkages and relations within Bornholm.
Within the tourism sector, destination management organisations (DMOs), also act as a
kind of mediator organisation. Firm-level interactions between different types of actors are mediated via DMOs, and it is often market knowledge that is re-circulated through these networks, but
also knowledge about IT and local knowledge useful for providing a tailor-made tourism product is
shared in the networks. In North Jutland and Skåne, the DMOs are driven by public organisations,
while there are similar processes in Antalya that are organised by private actors. In the cases of
North Jutland, Skåne and Antalya, the DMOs act as gatekeeper institutions through which extraregional knowledge enters the regions and is re-circulated.
An important set of mediator policies are funding programmes for collaborative projects.
There are examples of such funding schemes utilised by game developers within West Midlands
New Media case study. One grant scheme is run by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and is
for collaborative research and development in the creative industries, including games. Both large
and small grants from this scheme have been accessed by game companies in the region. A second scheme, ‘Raising the Game’, is run by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and
the Arts (NESTA). This scheme funds recruitment, mentoring and graduate internship schemes
and runs workshops to facilitate collaboration between organisations working in different media.
Triple-helix initiatives. There is an overlap between mediator policies and triple-helix initiatives in so far as triple-helix has become synonymous with networks including partners from the
private sector, higher education institutions and policy actors. In the cluster, network and platform
initiatives discussed above, an important common feature is the attempt to mobilise actors from
the three spheres. In this section we separate out incubators and science parks as classic triplehelix initiatives, which are more concrete than the broader network and cluster schemes described
previously.
72
Among the case studies there are several examples of incubators which have been established to encourage knowledge interactions in different sectors. In the Bavaria biotechnology
case study, an incubator was one of several policy initiatives. The Bavarian government initiated
a specific biotech incubator at the Martinsried campus near Munich in 1995. The incubator has
channelled funding to start-ups and three out of five of the most successful Munich biotech firms
were linked to it.
Science and technology parks are also mentioned as important actors in the regional innovation system of the Venice nanotechnology case study. There are three science and technology
parks in Venice, Padua and Verona that are linked together in a Network for Science and Technology programme. The aim of the parks is to provide services to high-tech companies and start ups.
Incubators are also used in other sectors. Within the ICT case study in Bratislava, the establishment of the incubator InQB at the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava in 2005 is highlighted as an important institution in the anchoring of knowledge. The primary aim of the incubator
is to support the development of the IT sector, and there are some spin-off firms established there.
Within the New Media sector in Skåne, the incubator Minc, owned by the municipality of Malmö,
is also highlighted as an important actor. It operates as a catalyst to commercialise ideas born at
the University of Malmö, but is also a meeting place for researchers, entrepreneurs, students and
businesses.
Summary
Firm-level interactions are in many case studies supported through cluster initiatives,
most of which have a primarily intra-regional focus. Other types of organisations of
this type are the DMOs within the tourism sector. The case studies reveal increasing efforts to develop extra-regional linkages. Cluster organisations and incubators
sometimes combine intra-regional networking with extra-regional links by establishing contact with potential international markets and collaboration partners. It is common for regional public funding to support firm-level interactions. The EU Regional
Structural Funds are often used for this purpose.
7.3. Developing policies to support knowledge anchoring
Extra-regional interactions and sources of knowledge – in addition to internal resources and
relations – are now acknowledged to be highly significant for learning, innovation and economic
development in regional economies across Europe. It is therefore important to understand the
ways in which knowledge flows into and is re-circulated within regions. This process, which we
call knowledge anchoring, is dependent on a variety of channels: the mechanisms by which
knowledge inflow and recirculation actually take place. Knowledge anchoring is important because
it implies a wide re-circulation of knowledge, rather than it being secured within one gatekeeper
institution or firm. There is potential for this knowledge to be recombined with existing knowledge
among different actors in a region.
73
With a better understanding of knowledge anchoring processes, policies to support knowledge interactions, innovations and growth can be selected to match regional needs as closely as
possible. We do not underestimate the obstacles to knowledge anchoring. In terms of recirculation from a gatekeeper firm or institution, we see some problems familiar from the critique of overly
positive accounts of knowledge spillovers and collaborative relations in clusters and industrial
districts. Firms do not wish to release commercially sensitive knowledge to their rivals unless it is
in their interests to do so. In other cases firms located in marginal regions may struggle to make
connections with external sources of knowledge; others lack effective networks through which
knowledge might be re-circulated or the absorptive capacity to make use of externally sourced
knowledge.
Our focus here has been upon the ways in which public policy might nonetheless support
and enhance the functioning of different knowledge inflow and recirculation channels. In the preceding sections we have explored policy initiatives that have directly influenced four main channels
that have been identified in a sample of 18 European regions. The most visible regional economic
policies are cluster-type initiatives, including a range of mediator and facilitator functions initiated
by regional development agencies and cluster management organisations. There is evidence that
policy makers are paying attention to extra-regional interactions and we found policy involvement
in all four channels, with initiatives engaging with both in-flow and recirculation.
In some cases these policies impact on more than one channel. For example, incubators were found to be influential on the channel ‘work-place or job related mobility’ by attracting
extra-regional actors for business start-ups. Incubators also took on the role as gatekeepers in the
acquisition of codified knowledge, and as mediators in terms of organising networking events and
serving as meeting places for firm-level interactions in regions.
We have only found a few examples of explicit cross-sectoral channel policies. Some
cluster organisations may encourage cross-sectoral collaboration, for example in firm-level interactions, but there is limited evidence of this from the case studies. In the case of the moving media
cluster organisation in Skåne, the activities aim to involve actors from different sectors. Another
example of cross-sectoral policy initiatives takes place in Bornholm where the food & drink sector
is linked with the tourism and crafts sectors. Cross-sectoral channel policies may provide an opportunity for deeper anchoring, innovative recombination and the development of new knowledge.
We have seen that the mechanisms and channels in which actors in regions are tapping
into global knowledge flows are complex. Many strategies and actions are used by firms, higher
education institutions and other actors to seek out and utilise knowledge wherever it is located.
Progressive policy actors are supporting such mechanisms and processes in a tailor-made way
rather than restricting their focus to supporting region-internal networks and linkages. This is a
proactive way of avoiding lock-ins and promoting innovative regional development.
For extra-regional knowledge to be accessed and re-circulated, actors must have the capacity to identify and exploit the new knowledge. These actors will have a variety of roles ranging
from firms to higher education institutions and regional policy makers and practitioners. The issue
of absorptive capacity is highly relevant to policies supporting knowledge anchoring.
Anchoring is a useful concept for policy-makers because it breaks down the different elements on which they must focus to improve sourcing and recirculation of external knowledge. We
74
recommend a combination of policy measures utilising all four channels in a coordinated fashion,
where each channel can be played to its strength.
75
Policy challenges
In order to support anchoring, policies should
•
support interaction across many geographical scales, regionally and internationally
•
involve many different types of actors; firms, higher education institutions, regional development agencies, public authorities, and civic organisations
•
stimulate cross-sectoral interactions
•
consist of tailor-make packages of policies, reflecting the complexity of knowledge anchoring
processes
Policy menu
Regional focus of public policies:
76
•
Regional development agencies and specific mediators such as cluster or platform organisations play important roles as brokers particularly in relation to recirculation of knowledge
in the regions. Increasingly they are also involved in supporting access of extra-regional
knowledge.
•
Deeper analysis may be required in individual regions in order to identify relevant channels
for regional industries. It would be important to search for firms or organisations which can
take on the role as gatekeepers of external knowledge and have an interest in re-circulating
new knowledge to other firms in the region. An analysis may be carried out in order to
identify relevant external sources from which to draw new knowledge.
•
The provision and development of digital infrastructure, such as high-speed broadband
networks is of importance in terms of gaining access to codified knowledge, which may
indicate that there could be a role for public policy in enhancing digital infrastructure to
improve connectivity with other regions. However, this is not in itself enough to guarantee
access and recirculation of extra regional knowledge. Softer factors such as human resources and ‘orgware’ are of great importance.
Connecting knowledge anchoring channels:
•
Incubators have been found to connect different channels together in terms of attracting extraregional workers for business start-ups, serving as gatekeepers of codified knowledge, and
providing a meeting place for firm-level interactions.
•
Developing policies specifically to link channels together may be favourable in terms of anchoring. Linking up of different initiatives and funding sources from different administrative levels is
recommended in order to maximise impact, and to minimise the risk of different initiatives actually counteracting each other or of ‘collaborative fatigue’ where the same key individuals and
actors are ‘spread too thinly’.
Aligning different levels of policy:
•
Aligning different levels of policy, i.e. the local, regional, national and European, in terms of supporting channels between European regions may be advantageous; for example, with regard
to immigration policy, which has a direct impact on the channel of work place and job-related
mobility.
77
8. Types of Knowledge and Learning
By Jesper Manniche
Two conceptual frameworks have been applied in the EURODITE project for empirically classifying
and studying knowledge dynamics:
•
a knowledge taxonomy (the so-called SAS model) distinguishing between analytical, synthetic
and symbolic knowledge types
•
a distinction between three phases or functions of knowledge development: exploration,
examination, and exploitation
Identifying the possible utility of these knowledge concepts for policy making is not straightforward
due to their abstract nature. However, a comprehensive understanding of them might provide
insights relevant for policy making. Thus, before discussing the policy implications (Section 4) we
need to define the two conceptualisations and outline the results of using them in the empirical
EURODITE analyses (Sections 2 and 3).
8.1. The SAS knowledge taxonomy
The EURODITE project has adopted a newly elaborated knowledge taxonomy that has been
described in research publications only in recent years. Three knowledge types – or bases – are
identified: Synthetic, Analytical, and Symbolic (SAS).
Synthetic knowledge is predominantly ‘engineering’ knowledge related to the instrumental, context specific and practice-related construction of solutions to human problems.
Analytical knowledge is predominantly scientific and geared to understand and explain
features of the natural and social world.
Symbolic knowledge deals with the creation and communication of cultural meanings,
symbols, ethics, and aesthetics.
The three SAS knowledge types are defined not by the objects for knowledge creation
(like a distinction between geology, zoology, botany, etc.) Instead they are defined by the (learning)
processes through which knowledge is developed and by the criteria for evaluating its usefulness/
purpose. Synthetic knowledge is evaluated on the basis of ‘functionality’ criteria and typically
develops via novel combinations of existing knowledge rather than generation of new knowledge.
Synthetic knowledge develops through learning-by-doing and learning-by-interaction applied in
technical and social ‘engineering’. Synthetic knowledge is mainly tacit and context specific but
also has an important codified element, and accordingly, can be spatially mobile within profes-
78
sional communities. Creation of analytical knowledge involves codified explanation and evidence.
It is developed via formal, scientific processes including social and humanistic sciences. Thus
analytical knowledge is to a large extent mobile and transferable across space. Finally, symbolic
knowledge is evaluated according to ‘meaning’ criteria. It is developed via open-ended creative
and artistic thinking, performance and interaction that go beyond conformity and often combine
or re-interpret established conventions in new ways. Accordingly, symbolic knowledge is mainly
(but not exclusively) tacit because it depends heavily on the social and cultural context and is often
not directly transferable in geographical space. Summing up, the SAS knowledge types constitute three fundamentally different categories of knowledge with different learning modes, different
mixes of tacit and codified knowledge, different approaches to reasoning, and varying importance
in different parts of the economy.
While research on innovation and knowledge creation is rich on studies involving analytical/scientific and synthetic/engineering knowledge, studies of the economic role of the symbolic/
creative category of knowledge certainly are less frequent. It is important to stress that symbolic
knowledge is not only relevant to artistic, fine-cultural, aesthetical activities, as the few existing
research contributions about symbolic knowledge tend to suggest, but also to more general and
popular cultures and systems of meaning. Basically, personal services such as hair-cutting and
bartending to a large extent rely on symbolic knowledge. The inclusion of symbolic knowledge and
the socio-cultural forms of learning through which it is developed opens up new fields of innovation that currently seem to be gaining economic importance in many countries. This includes the
rise of the creative industries and the growing weight throughout the economy of intangible elements such as ‘experiences’, design, communication and storytelling, embedded in or attached
to products and services. These market trends underline the importance of symbolic knowledge
for companies who try to embed distinct values and meanings in their business organisation and
product portfolio, and communicate such values and meanings to consumers. The inclusion of
symbolic knowledge in the conceptual framework emphasises the need to integrate production
and consumption when designing policies for economic development.
Moreover, including the symbolic type of knowledge may widen the spectrum of possible
knowledge domains on which economic potentials and competitive advantages can rely. For
instance, the EU economy often ranks relatively badly in global benchmarking with USA and Asian
countries on the basis of traditional knowledge indicators of scientific and technological development, but it could be argued that the EU region holds global competitive advantages in certain
symbolic knowledge domains related to tourism, gastronomy, art, fashion, design, communication
etc. which are often overlooked in global economic comparisons.
The threefold SAS knowledge taxonomy refers to ideal-types of knowledge, and in practice
most businesses draw upon combinations of the knowledge types, to varying degrees, and the
overall importance for competitiveness of the three knowledge types differs across sectors and
markets. In biotech industries, for instance, analytical knowledge is critical, in traditional manufacturing industries such as automotive and food, synthetic knowledge types prevail, while media and
tourism are examples of sectors in which symbolic knowledge plays a dominant role. However,
the empirical EURODITE firm-level case studies have documented that innovation activities in
all sectors usually evolve through differing combinations of analytical, synthetic and/or symbolic
79
knowledge dynamics, and this indicates that most companies depend on capabilities within all
three knowledge types. In some cases innovation processes seem to follow a traditional, linear
three-step innovation model in which, firstly, new (analytical) knowledge is developed through
R&D, then tested and transformed into instrumental, technological (synthetic) knowledge, and
then finally commercialised via adding of market and consumer (symbolic) knowledge. Typically,
however, innovation is carried out through more complex processes with closely interconnected
and often simultaneous sequences of learning related to specific knowledge needs and thus relying on different knowledge types. For instance, symbolic knowledge is not applied only in the final
marketing phase of innovation processes but sometimes plays the initiating and defining role for
subsequent scientific and technological development. Hence, the SAS model allows for studies of
not only traditional analytical-synthetic-symbolic knowledge value chains but of other knowledge
value chains as well.
The SAS taxonomy can be used both at a micro/organisation and a macro/system level
of analysis. Used at the micro-level the taxonomy can help us to identify the relative importance
of, and interaction between, the three ideal-types of knowledge in a given organisation and for
strategic decisions regarding the direction of knowledge development. At the macro/system level
of analysis which is more central in policy making, the taxonomy can be used to identify overall patterns of knowledge specialisation and integration among the actors and institutions in a
particular knowledge system or domain, i.e. a particular field of knowledge development and use,
centred on a certain technology or topic. Some knowledge systems are characterised by a high
degree of specialisation among actors and institutions regarding the knowledge type on which
they rely (emerging high-tech sectors driven by new analytical knowledge dynamics expectedly),
while other knowledge systems/domains are characterised by actors and institutions that to a
larger extent relies on capabilities within more knowledge types (mature sectors such as the food
industry could be an example of this).
Furthermore, the taxonomy also could be used in macro-level analysis in order to identify
and quantify divergent (national or regional) competence structures, job categories, labour markets
and related educational systems. For example, in order to translate Richard Florida’s concept of
“the creative class” to “symbolic knowledge workers”, recent research has used statistical education nomenclatures to define and quantify groups of persons having educations primarily based on
analytical, synthetic and symbolic knowledge. Similar research is done by using statistical occupation nomenclatures to define and quantify the employment in occupations primarily based on
analytical, synthetic respectively symbolic knowledge.
8.2. Knowledge development phases/strategies
In the EURODITE project the concepts of exploration, examination and exploitation have been introduced to distinguish between different phases in innovations and knowledge development from
the generation of new knowledge to the commercialisation and use. This three-step model builds
on the distinction between exploration and exploitation, originally suggested by J. G. March (1991)
and very influential within organisational research on technological innovation, organisational adaptation and learning, competitive advantage and other topics. March’s twin-concepts of exploration
and exploitation are not defined as temporally divided ‘phases’ of knowledge development but
80
rather as two generic knowledge strategies: (1) exploration, whereby firms strive to develop capabilities to excel at the creation or acquisition of new knowledge, and (2) exploitation, where they
develop capabilities to excel at the ability to leverage existing knowledge to rapidly create new
organisational products and processes. As indicated in the headline of this section, this definition
of the concepts as different strategies or functions of knowledge development is adopted here
in order to avoid a traditional linear understanding of innovation that tend to be connected with a
definition of the concepts as different temporal phases.
Examination is included in the conceptual model in order to emphasise the possible role of
an inter-mediating strategy between generation and use of knowledge in which new knowledge
is tested and trialled before commercial application. The pharmaceutical industries’ complicated
clinical tests of new products before introduction on the market is a prime example of such intermediating examination dynamics. The EURODITE empirical case studies have clearly documented
that knowledge dynamics related to innovation concern much more than just generation and use
of knowledge. In fact, most of the studied innovation processes have involved activities such as
testing, trialling, scoping, diffusion, contextualising and adaptation of knowledge besides of activities related to acquisition and use of knowledge.
While it seems relevant to apply a conceptual framework allowing for studies of intermediate activities between exploration and exploitation, this does not imply that all innovations develop
through the same three steps of learning. At least this would seem to collide with the SAS conceptual framework regarding three different types of knowledge defined by fundamentally different
forms of learning. However, this conceptual problem could be circumvented by interpreting the
three different strategies/functions of knowledge development not as phases that mechanistically
follow each other but instead as three different but interconnected learning functions that can be
followed repeatedly through diverse forms of feed-back loops, i.e. our understanding also allows
for ‘re-exploration’, ‘re-examination’ and ‘re-exploitation’.
Nonetheless, as argued above, the empirical case studies have provided a rich array of
examples of knowledge dynamics involving not only explorative and exploitative knowledge activities but also many forms of inter-mediating learning. For instance, diffusion and contextualisation
(examination) of existing product, technology and marketing knowledge to specific production
locations and/or markets rather than generation of new knowledge has been critical for the recent
creation of new small-scale businesses based on emerging markets for quality specialty foods.
“Ambidexterity refers to the synchronous pursuit of both exploration and exploitation
via loosely coupled and differentiated subunits or individuals, each of which specialises in either exploration or exploitation. In contrast, punctuated equilibrium refers to temporal rather than organisational differentiation and suggests that cycling
through periods of exploration and exploitation is a more viable approach than a
simultaneous pursuit of the two.”
Gupta, et al. (2006:396)
81
While there exists relative consensus in organisation research on the need for organisations, as well as larger knowledge systems, to balance exploration and exploitation, there is an
ongoing debate about whether exploration and exploitation (and examination, we might add) occur in what has been called, respectively, ambidexterity or punctuated equilibrium. The EURODITE
firm-level case studies provide examples of both types of balances. For instance, in biotech industries innovations usually occur in punctuated equilibrium, i.e. firms carry out temporally divided
phases of exploration, examination and exploitation, while ambidexterity seems to characterise
innovations of small food companies, i.e. exploration, examination and exploitation are carried out
synchronously by differentiated sub-units or individuals. In both instances, management skills to
coordinate the activities and results of exploration, examination and exploitation, are needed, as
also underlined in Chapter 6.
Like the SAS knowledge concepts, the concepts of knowledge strategies and functions can be used in a micro and a macro perspective. The empirical EURODITE work has not
paid close attention to this distinction. However, at a macro-level of analysis, focussing on entire
knowledge systems rather than on individual companies and sub-systems, it would be possible to
find dif-ferent configurations of the institutional mechanisms sustaining the required balance and
interaction between exploration, examination and exploitation. In some knowledge and innovation
systems, the balance of the three knowledge strategies will be achieved by specialisation between
the individual actors via a market or quasi-market interface. Biotech and pharmaceutical industries
might exemplify such a knowledge system, encompassing actors heavily specialised in exploration and others heavily specialised in examination. In other knowledge and innovation systems, the
balancing and integration of the three knowledge strategies to a larger extent will be achieved at
the level of individual organisations: agro-food sectors dominated by large multinational processing companies provide an excellent example of this.
8.3. Conclusions and policy implications
When exploring the relevance of the SAS knowledge types for policies aiming to promote the
knowledge economy, it is important to recall that they do not care about the object for knowledge
development. They simply constitute three different modes of learning of individuals, organisations
and communities: 1) scientific research, 2) instrumental problem-solving and 3) creation of cultural
meanings. Accordingly, the SAS model cannot be used as a tool for, for instance, measuring the
resources in specific knowledge domains. However, using the SAS taxonomy in policy-making
might increase awareness of the importance and interconnectedness of different approaches to,
environments for, and types of learning, i.e. different ways of supporting and encouraging economically useful knowledge dynamics.
On the basis of the inventory of actual knowledge policies documented by the EURODITE
empirical case studies, it seems straightforward to translate ‘promotion of analytical knowledge
dynamics’ into ‘science, research and education policy’ and ‘promotion of synthetic knowledge
dynamics’ into ‘technology and innovation policy’. There are many examples from the EURODITE
case studies of policies within both of these fields. In contrast, it is more difficult to identify one
designated policy domain targeted promotion of symbolic knowledge dynamics. Indeed, a critical
core in ‘symbolic knowledge policy’ is culture policy, supporting art, cultural heritage and pro-
82
duction, intercultural communication etc., such as the national and regional policy schemes for
film production documented in the case study reports from Sweden. One interesting conclusion
from this particular case study is that cultural and economic development goals are increasingly
integrated in policies, and that the promotion of symbolic knowledge dynamics is also integrated into the promotion of analytical and synthetic knowledge. This is also clearly observable
in the emerging urban/metropolitan policy and planning approaches that are inspired by Richard
Florida’s work on the ‘creative class’ and focus on attracting creative labour and enterprises by
supporting cultural and social ‘quality of life’ aspects rather than traditional economic production
factor conditions. Related to this type of policy, are regional place-branding initiatives to re-define
the identity and image of the region and to attract businesses, citizens and tourists. These have
been reported in EURODITE empirical case studies e.g. from Bornholm, North Jutland and Wales.
A final example of policies that draw on symbolic knowledge dynamics, and are documented in
several case studies, are schemes supporting marketing, communication, design etc.
The question is, however, if such fundamentally ‘sector policy’ ways of using the SAS model add anything at all to existing policy scoping? As said above, the policy perspectives of using
the model rely on a macro-level of analysis, focusing on differences between knowledge and innovation systems rather than differences between knowledge and innovation actors. In such a perspective, it must be a central policy objective to secure not only efficient learning environments for
the development of each of three knowledge types but also transfers and interaction of knowledge
across the institutions defining and sustaining such learning environments. In other words the
aim should be to secure an optimal integration and balance of analytical, synthetic and symbolic
knowledge dyna-mics. In fact, many EURODITE empirical case studies describe policy initiatives
with this (direct or indirect) goal. One example is the regional cluster initiatives in Aquitaine/France
supporting science-based analytical knowledge dynamics within biotech universities and firms as
well as infrastructure for synthetic engineering-based activities of developing ‘functional food’. The
policy schemes to promote a media and movie sector in Scania/Sweden constitute one of the few
examples in the EURODITE empirical material of deliberate integration at system level of analytical,
synthetic as well as symbolic knowledge dynamics.
As described above, the SAS taxonomy also could be used to identify and quantify the
significance of competence structures, job categories, labour markets and educational systems
for the purpose of elaborating regional strategies for economic and demographic development,
place-branding, scoping and scaling of research and education systems, etc.
In addition, the policy implications of the concepts of exploration, examination and exploitation primarily rely on a macro-level of analysis, focussing on promoting the balance and interaction between the three knowledge strategies in entire knowledge systems rather than in individual
companies and sub-systems. In knowledge systems, characterised by specialisation and division
of labour among actors regarding knowledge strategy (such as emerging high-tech industries),
there might be a need for policies to secure efficient knowledge transfer between actors specialised in exploration and actors specialised in other knowledge strategies, i.e. to secure that new
knowledge is diffused and further developed in the system. In other knowledge systems, characterised by actors with capabilities in exploration, examination and exploitation (such as more
mature industries), there might instead be need for policies securing the introduction of radical
new knowledge in the system as a whole.
83
The EURODITE case studies show that all three knowledge strategies are targeted by
policy initiatives; however, exploitation and examination dynamics feature more frequently than
exploration dynamics (see Table 4.6 in Chapter 4). The importance of policies supporting examination and exploitation dynamics is reflected in, for instance, a high number of initiatives to
create (regional or national) network organisations with the explicit goal of enhancing the diffusion, sharing, adaptation and use of knowledge. The empirical evidence does not allow for strong
conclusions on the topic but this might indicate that the capability for exploration today is relatively
concentrated in a few regions and universities and that public intervention, despite or because of
this, more often focuses on the diffusion of existing knowledge rather than the generation of new
knowledge.
84
Policy challenges
•
Policies should aim to influence a wide variety of knowledge types and learning processes in
order to
- integrate production and consumption dimensions in development strategies
- increase the systematic use of symbolic knowledge in economic development
- secure efficient ‘systemic pipelines’ of exploration, examination and exploitation of
knowledge
•
In order to promote an integrated use of different knowledge types and learning processes,
increased coordination is needed between different areas of public policy
Policy menu
Policies for the Knowledge Economy should support the creation of symbolic knowledge (including codified, research-based knowledge) about socio-cultural aspects of consumption.
They should also support the integration of this knowledge in product, technology and organizational innovations. This may give firms competitive advantages in domestic and global
markets. Industry-university linkages should include humanistic faculties.
At the regional and local level it is important to clarify the economic reliance on the generation
of new knowledge as opposed to the application of existing knowledge. In regions characterized by knowledge generation capabilities, policy efforts should focus on creation of
intra-regional mechanisms and pipelines for knowledge diffusion and use. In regions primarily
based on knowledge use, such as peripheral, rural areas, policies rather should focus on the
building of region-external pipelines to strategic knowledge centres.
85
9. Gender, Knowledge Dynamics and
Regional Policy
By Alison Parken
This chapter considers the role of gender in the development of knowledge economies. It reviews
policies within relevant European Commission Directorate-Generals and regional development bodies in the European Union (EU) and it draws on data and information collected by the EURODITE
case studies. The member states of the EU and the European Commission itself have made a
commitment to gender mainstreaming, or ‘promoting’ gender equality in all their policies and
programmes. This is to ensure that members of both genders have the opportunity to benefit from
goods and services. A crucial question for this chapter is to what extent has that commitment
influenced the policies of those organisations involved in knowledge economies? To what extent
do women and men benefit from advice, investment and services?
Gender mainstreaming was introduced by the European Commission within the
Community Action Programme 1996-2000, where it was defined as:
… mobilising all general policies and measures specifically for the purpose of achieving
equality by actively and openly taking account at the planning stage of their possible
effects on the respective situations of men and women.
Equality of opportunity has been described as both a substantive and ‘transversal policy domain’.
The role of gender in segregating the workforce by industry, grade and type of contract contributes to the contextual shaping of individuals’ ‘choices’. This in turn affects the outcome distribution of rewards and resources in all areas of social and economic life – including opportunities for
starting businesses, for pay and for pension. Besides a rationale based in social justice and real
choice for men and women, both business and economic cases have been marshalled to argue
for greater participation and integration of women in particular, as they are under-represented the
areas of education and employment key to the transition to knowledge based economies within
the European Employment Strategy.
Whilst gender mainstreaming policy at the European level has focused on increasing
women’s participation in paid work, little attention has been paid to their inclusion in the
quality jobs emerging within knowledge economies. The result is a growing disparity in
the gender division of rewards and resources in the new economies of Europe.
One of the most important tools in gender mainstreaming is an equality impact assessment of all
policies to calculate how they will actively promote equality between men and women. This research found no evidence of impact assessments having been conducted for policies designed to
promote growth and jobs in the new economies. As a result, gender divisions are likely to polarise
further, as funding is directed to economic sectors where there is significantly low participation of
86
women.
9.1. Knowledge economy: A gendered concept?
There is no commonly agreed definition of a ‘knowledge economy’ or economies but how it is
defined and consequently informs investment decisions is of fundamental importance to whether
women contribute. Partners in the EURODITE project have identified a range of definitions in use
across academic disciplines (economics, economic geography, sociology, organisational studies
and social policy). These encompass both broad sociological and cultural descriptions of the shift
to ‘knowledge based societies’, through the application of Information and Communication Technologies, and the articulation of narrower concepts, found both in economic geography and policy
analysis, which focus on selected industries and occupations. These narrow definitions, commonly focused upon Research and Development in technological innovation, are more dominant
in the discourse but incorporate only certain workers, in certain occupations, described by the
UK’s Work Foundation as:
... technology and knowledge based industries reflecting R & D intensity, high ICT usage,
and the development of large numbers of graduates and professionals and associate
professional workers – the knowledge workers.
In practice Eurostat, charged with measuring progress towards the Lisbon Treaty vision of a dynamic knowledge economy with quality jobs and greater social cohesion, narrowly focuses upon
output and employment in high-tech manufacturing activities and knowledge intensive services.
By contrast, the Work Foundation has incorporated public services work, and especially
health and education, into the equation. It also suggests the inclusion of older industries, where
workers use ICT both extensively and routinely, and the valuing of human capital in relation to the
production of intangibles such as research, design and brand building. These activities, it has
been suggested within EURODITE, may be as important as controlling land and labour in the
emerging economy.
Part of the difficulty of assessing women’s contribution to knowledge economies is the
absence of a sectoral occupational data set for ‘knowledge workers’. Knowledge workers are
commonly referred to as graduates from just three occupational strata, namely Managers and
Senior Officials; Professional and Associate Professional; and Technical. Women have undoubtedly benefited from increased participation rates in higher education, and are now the majority of
under- graduates in the EU. The question remains as to whether they are realising the rewards of
this increased qualification capital in employment.
In these ‘top 3’ occupational strata, women are primarily concentrated in public administration, and public sector educational and health occupations throughout Europe. A frame of
enquiry for the knowledge economy that encompasses a broad industry base, including knowledge work in management and service delivery occupations, and crucially including the public
sector, would enable a closer study of women’s role and contribution. ICT has been incorporated
into medicine, nursing, law and teaching, facilitating growth. This has produced an increase in autonomous working (normally associated with knowledge economy professions) except in nursing
and teaching where women predominate. However, analysis of the ‘new economy’ demonstrates
divergent gender participation in the growth of quality jobs in the knowledge economy, account-
87
ing for much of men’s increased employment, whilst women have populated the additional poorly
paid social care jobs, characterised by part-time contracts and low earnings. These labour markets are further stratified by class and income. Social care work requires considerable application
of knowledge, but it does not conform to current concepts of the knowledge economy and thus is
not valued or rewarded as such.
Therefore we need to consider women’s work within the ‘triple-helix’ locations of economic
development; government, higher education and business. Employment data for these sectors is
discussed below.
9.2. Women and the ‘triple helix’: ‘Quality jobs’
Labour market participation by gender
Recent European employment figures show that women are 30% of full time legislators in the EU,
45% of professionals and 47% of those working in the category associate and technical professions. Gender segregation by industrial sector means that women are disproportionately to be
found in the public sector and narrowly concentrated in public administration, health and education occupations.
At the EU 25 level six sectors of activity, defined at the NACE 2 – digit level (of which there
are 62 in total), employed just over 60% of women in 2005, all of them involving the supply of market or public services. The sectors comprise:
•
health care and social services (in which 17% of all women were employed),
•
retailing (12.5%),
•
education (11.5%),
•
public administration (7%),
•
business activities (7%) and
•
hotels and restaurants (5%).
These sectors accounted for only 31% of men’s employment
Franco (2007)
Labour market organisation is significantly influenced by perceived gender roles, traditional
gender cultures and the ways in which ‘we’ enact gender through our performance of jobs. Our
images of jobs are not ‘gender neutral’. Moreover, in terms of vertical segregation, Valian refers to
‘gender schemas’ – implicit hypotheses about gender differences based upon stereotypes, which
accumulate to advantage men and disadvantage women. She has conducted laboratory and field
studies that illustrate how gender schemas inform opinions and perceptions, however unintentionally. The net effect of occupational and contract gender segregation is to reduce the talent pool
from which to build upon and exploit knowledge work.
Women are the majority of part-time workers in the EU. The available hours and quality
of part-time work varies between countries but is it always more available in those occupations
88
where women are predominant, and it is associated with low skilled work. Income disparity between men and women is significant. In the UK, concentration in low paid part-time work results in
women being the majority of workers paid less than the minimum national wage. Women’s greater
participation in the labour market has been achieved by their take-up of low-paid, low-value jobs
in the services sector, whilst ‘quality jobs’ in the new economy have been taken up by men.
Segregation is evident when a finer breakdown of occupational sub-categories is examined. A higher proportion of professionals and technicians in physical, mathematical and engineering science positions are male. Meanwhile, teaching, life science and
health professionals are more likely to be women. Among unskilled workers, cleaning
and domestic services (ISCO 91) are female-dominated while labouring jobs (ISCO 92,
93) are male-dominated.
Burchell, et al. (2007)
Participation in quality jobs
Government, universities and businesses represent the core sites of knowledge generation for
the transition to and growth within regional knowledge economies. The most recent European
Commission Annual Report on Equality finds that vertical occupational segregation has remained
unchanged or in some cases increased in recent years, and argues that this impacts on decision
making in society and the economy.
Despite the fact that more and more women are highly qualified and the labour market
participation of women is on the increase, they are still largely outnumbered by men in
positions of responsibility in politics and business, particularly at the top level.
The number of female managers in the EU has remained stable over the last few
years, averaging 30%, and figures are even lower in a majority of Member States. The
proportion of women directors of top quoted company boards is 3% across the EU,
while one in ten company board members is a woman.
There are no female governors of the national Central Banks in the EU, while they
account for only 16% of the highest decision-making bodies of these institutions. This is
paradoxical when female students outnumber male in business, administration and law.
European Commission (2009).
Over the past decade there has been increasing concern about the paucity of women in
science and research careers. The European Commission has sponsored research and working
groups over this time evidencing the result of gendered ‘choices’ and organisational ‘chill’ factors
that mean high numbers of women graduates are not reaping the rewards associated with their
qualifications, with consequent losses to economies in higher education, government and the
business enterprise sector.
89
The European Commission’s SHE figures, regularly produced gender disaggregated statistics and indicators on science education and employment for the members states, identify the
EU25 average proportion of women researchers in 2006 in higher education, government and the
business enterprise sectors as 37%, 39% and 19% respectively. Overall, women now comprise
59% of undergraduates. In the government sector, there are similar numbers of men and women
working as researchers in humanities but 73% of engineering researchers are men.
In the EU27, women account for 17.3% of researchers in manufacturing and 38% in pharmaceuticals in the private sector: a much higher proportion than within other NACE codes in this
sector. Women have much higher participation rates in manufacturing research in similar occupations in the former Soviet countries. Proportions vary significantly between countries; women were
37% of all EU25 researchers in higher education but 48% in Sweden and 27% in the Netherlands.
In higher education, women are 7% of Professors in engineering, 13% in natural sciences
and 17% in medical sciences. Overall, women are just 19% of the academic professoriate (Grade
A positions) in the EU: the designation most likely to provide lead researchers for knowledge transfer funding applications.
The SHE figures time series demonstrate considerable growth in the number of women
PhDs and female researchers, but these headcount figures will mask considerable gender differences in employment and study contracts: many more women than men will be employed/study
part-time which will have an impact on their career progression.
“Women are seriously under-represented in the business enterprise sector where the
EU’s R&D is most highly intensive; and in senior academic grades and influential positions where strategies are set, policies are developed, and the agenda for the future is
determined.”
European Commission (2006)
Women’s participation in research work is currently growing faster than that of men overall.
However, this is not the case in the study of natural sciences, engineering and technology. Growth
for women is apparent in their domination of education subjects whereas in science, mathematics
and computing (especially engineering, manufacturing and construction), PhD numbers continue
to be dominated by men. In summary, women are significantly absent from the places where decisions about, and involvement in, the transition to knowledge economies is taking place.
Gender inclusion has significant impact on the success of country’s transition to knowledge economies. The WELLKNOW research for the European Commission, which considered
this transition from a cohesion perspective, described the shift as not necessarily implying greater
social inclusion but closely linked to varying welfare regimes. Where social protection, care provision and flexibility are greatest, as in the Nordic model, transition to knowledge based societies
has been faster and more inclusive. Mediterranean countries show the slowest transition, with
Continental and Liberal Economic societies in an intermediate position but showing greater social
divisions in participation.
Again, these patterns of segregation horizontally by sector and industry, vertically in occupational hierarchies, and by contract in the labour market have significant implications for the
90
study of participation in the knowledge economy and for who is best placed to benefit from government funding to universities and businesses at the regional level.
9.3. Gendered regional economic policies
For EURODITE, Halkier conducted a policy profiling study of the main economic development
decision-making structures in each of 22 European regions. One hundred and eighty regional
bodies were chosen by selecting the most important in each region. This represents a quarter of
all those in existence. Sixty three of these bodies recorded the gender balance of their Boards
in a publicly accessible manner. Of these, eleven had attained a gender balance (on the 60/40
principle), two had absolute gender balance and one was female dominated. In relation to gender
equality strategies at the regional economic development level Halkier finds that:
The self-proclaimed gender neutrality of policy measures is clearly evident: for more than
70 per cent of organisations surveyed no gender strategy has been identified (calculated
on the basis of the RDA survey 2007 database), while mainstreaming (Sweden) or separate initiatives (UK) prevail in only three member states.
Halkier, H. (2009) Regional Policy in European Regions: A Survey of Regional
Development Agency Policies and their knowledge implications, EURODITE,
WP1c draft final report.
We conclude that this lack of attention to the issue reflects the low status afforded the incorporation of gender reflexivity in economic policy. However, some gender policy data was available for
development bodies in the UK and Sweden, and as it appeared to show a difference in emphasis
between specific equality projects and gender mainstreaming in these countries, a purposive
investigation of the websites of regional development bodies in the UK and Sweden was undertaken. The focus was to assess the interrelationship of gender and economic regional policies.
UK RDAs
The legal requirement placed upon all public bodies in the UK to consider gender equality in all
their activities is contained within the Gender Equality Duty (Equality Act 2006). This requires listed
Public Authorities to produce a Gender Equality Scheme every three years. A specific duty in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland also requires action to address gender pay gaps.
A web survey of all nine RDAs in England revealed that all but one had a published Gender
Equality Scheme. However, apart from programmes for basic skills training or women’s entrepreneurship, and network and mentoring programmes, data collection and actions were focused
upon flexible working, occupational segregation and pay disparities within the organisation itself.
The focus, then, was on the RDA as employer rather than service provider.
Propensity to entrepreneurial activity can be influenced by national and regional culture,
as well as by education, age, work status, access to finance, etc. The Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor for 2008 demonstrates that women own or run businesses across the industry spectrum
(including extraction, transformation and energy) but that they are much more likely to be involved
in consumer-orientated businesses. They build upon knowledge, skills and networks gained in the
occupations where they have previously been employed; resulting in most women’s start-ups being in personal service and lifestyle businesses.
91
The LDA strongly believes in mainstreaming equalities into all our work. This means that
Equalities is owned by all parts of the LDA and considered at outset of a project (rather
than as an afterthought). Target setting, research, monitoring and training form part of
a broad package of initiatives to ensure the needs of all London’s diverse communities
benefit from our investment. Our absolute commitment in these areas is widely acknowledged. We have recently reached the highest level (Level 5) of the Governments equality
standard. Only three from 43,000 public bodies have achieved this. We also always
conduct equality and community cohesion impact assessments on all our projects.
London Development Agency (2006) Gender Equality Scheme 2007 – 2010
Women are much less likely to be amongst the business owner/managers of specialised
design, technical or knowledge intensive business services or their academic counterparts – the
‘academic entrepreneurs’ who have been the focus of research in EURODITE. But we should
anticipate their presence in food, tourism, and business services.
The London Development Agency (LDA) was the only body in England where the Gender
Equality Scheme was linked directly to the Regional Equality Strategy. Here, gender mainstreaming actions were apparent in a study of the potential economic impact of programmes to up-skill
women and within equality impact assessments of its own work in enterprise programmes. The
LDA demonstrated use of equality evidence to design policy and programme initiatives. In addition, equality indicators and targets were linked to meeting corporate targets.
The devolved administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have Single Equality Schemes, covering all strands of inequality. Although they must report annually on progress
towards equality to their Parliament or National Assemblies respectively, only Scotland’s publications evidenced a clear link between the equality scheme and the Scottish Executive’s economic,
skills and investment strategies.
The Parken and Rees Wales Gender Case Study, undertaken for EURODITE in 2009,35
considered the allocation of funding by the National Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP)
programme. This is the body that decides policy and allocates its own, and Research Council
funding, to know-ledge transfer partnerships between academies and commercialisation partners.
A gender analysis of the Wales fund, considering each lead researcher in each project, demonstrated the effect of having so few women in universities in positions where they can compete for
research funds. Women academics received just 11% of the funding, totalling £413,000, whilst
men received £3,505,000.
Besides men’s numerical and financial dominance of research funding, the result of subject
‘choice’ and gender concentrations within academic disciplines, were apparent in resource
allocation:
There were no KTPs funded for women in ICT, design or high value manufacturing, and
just one woman leading a bioscience KTP – despite the preponderance of women in
biosciences. There appeared to be a number of women running KTPs in Management
Science within one Further Education College in Wales. However, following enquires, it
92
became apparent that the administrator for innovation had been listed and not the lead
researcher.
This demonstrates how gender disparities can be reproduced when gender equality is not considered as central to regional economic strategies. It further shows how perceptions about which
sectors ‘belong to’ and should be funded within the knowledge economy, can create inequitable
gender outcomes. Gender analysis of sector policy, incorporating gender beneficiary assessments
of funding allocation, as part of required equality impact assessments within economic strategy,
should pick up these kinds of disparities. It is clear that gender analyses of regional economic
policies are not routinely being undertaken as part of equality auditing through equality impact assessments.
Swedish regional bodies
In Sweden, all public authorities and all organisations with more than 25 staff (including the private
sector) are required to have a Gender Equality Plan (Discrimination Act 2008, section 13). Economic development is organised at three inter-linked regional levels in Sweden. Directly elected
assemblies are responsible for economic development in Västra Götaland and Skåne, whilst
regional co-operation councils are responsible in 14 regions, and County Administration Boards,
state agencies, operate in 5 regions.
Whilst the regional co-operation councils have limited influence on economic development,
the assemblies and County Administration Boards bear the main responsibility for this remit. A
search of County Administration Boards using the term ‘equality’ between 30th Nov – 4th December 2009 revealed prominent descriptions of gender mainstreaming principles, legal responsibilities, equality councils and their stakeholder groups, specific actions, and some signposting to ESF
programmes.
While the UK government does not set targets, all the Swedish County Administration
Boards listed the national gender equality targets. The Swedish goals are wide ranging, transversal and focused upon structural change in social and economic gendered outcomes.
In contrast to the UK, descriptions of gender mainstreaming, and its place in all programme and
policy decisions were prominently displayed within the equality areas of the websites. Equality
Councils and Gender Experts are in place to advise on how to ‘gender mainstream’, and there is
frequent reference to the gender evidence base provided by Statistics Sweden. However, most
Boards had not updated their figures since 2006, citing the lack of a corporate sponsor for this
work. Most County Boards are partners in a national ESF project of SK 24 million that aims to
increase the application of gender mainstreaming within Social Fund projects.
However, beyond these corporate statements, there was little evidence of specific action
to address the gender dimension in training and in occupations where women were under-represented. Programmes focused upon encouraging women to become entrepreneurs as a method
of inclusion in the labour market were again evident. No evidence of knowledge transfer projects
attempting gender mainstreaming was found in this search.
However, the national agency VINNOVA: Research and Development for Sustainable
Growth is a programme specifically designed to promote gender equality in the shift towards the
knowledge economy. Most notably, under the Needs-Driven Gender Research for Innovation,
93
there is the BEGINN Programme:
… aimed at supporting the development of the competence area of integrating gender
perspectives for equality and growth and promoting the emergence of actors within the
field using such means as R&D projects, research schools and strong milieus
http://www.vinnova.se/In-English/Activities/Working-Life-/Needs-Driven-Gender-Research-for-Innovation/
This type of initiative would appear to be the kind of policy approach now recognised as needed
to address the growing gender disparity in the ‘new economy’.
However, the VINNOVA project aside, the European regions appear to be mirroring
developments at the EU level where gender mainstreaming has focused on increasing women’s
employment rates. It is not being considered in economic development policy circles as relevant to
the transition to the knowledge economy.
In summary, the RDA comparison exercise revealed little gender data or policy actions
informing gender equality perspectives within knowledge economy or knowledge transfer activities, innovation or research/investment grants. In the UK, gender policy was mostly focused upon
the workforce of the development agency itself, as an employer, with little or no linkage to regional
economic strategy. The Swedish development agencies gave much more prominence to their
gender equality targets and the governance and policy machinery to facilitate structural change
(Equality Councils). Gender balance data for governing boards and senior managers were much
more available but again, projects were mainly focused upon labour market participation, despite
addressing occupational segregation being a stated aim.
Decisions about which sectors constitute ‘the knowledge economy’ greatly affect the
Regional economic development agencies are not, with the exception of one initiative in
Sweden (discussed above) operating gender reflexivity in sector policies related to the
knowledge economy sectors studied in EURODITE
participation of women in this transition. It is clear that consideration of funding innovation within
the public and third sectors, and occupations (care, customer service, catering) where women are
clustered would be required to enhance their participation.
9.4. Gender and economic development policies in the EURODITE case
studies
The lack of gender mainstreaming in regional development agency sector or cluster policy is reflected in the EURODITE partner case study reports. Researchers noted the difficulty of obtaining
information on gender in the firm case studies. This is a research issue that the recently published
European Commission toolkit on incorporating a gender focus in all EU funded research hopes to
begin to address.
The EURODITE case studies evidenced clear horizontal gender segregation in automotive,
94
ICT and new media. Where women were present in these industries, it was most often in support
roles – in the ‘trim-shop’ in automotive, in and administrative roles in ICT, and new media. Women
entrepreneurs were evident in KIBs, bioscience and particularly in agri-food and agri-tourism family
diversification businesses.
However, significantly, all the case study reports noted that the lead policy actors in each
The West Midlands automotive industry, in common with all engineering sectors, is male
dominated. Women employees tend to be concentrated in the downstream areas of
marketing, branding and customer relations.
West Midlands’ EURODITE case study
region were men. Further, that these policy makers were working almost exclusively with other
men in the networks to lead new developments and knowledge transfers, including with venture
capitalists, business owners and academics. Women are significantly absent from these regional
decision-making roles and processes. This can result in the ‘institutional thickness’ between
regional actors, as Amin and Thrift describe it – the shared culture, capital and knowledges of
development operators, becoming insular. Policy becomes inadvertently based on the restricted
experience and subjectivity of one gender.
Although gender was absent from sector policies, business and workplace initiatives
to promote women’s inclusion were evident. For example, in the automotive industry in Lower
Saxony, one firm has encouraged women to study science and engineering at higher education
levels, provided coaching programmes to encourage girls to become apprentices in manual and
technical trades, and provided mentoring programmes for women professionals employed in the
company.
Initially, it appeared that the Munich bioscience cluster had, in its development, benefited
from at least one gender specific measure: namely the provision of a kindergarten for children of
all cluster-firm employees. However, on further investigation this was found to be a requirement
placed upon the developers of the bio-science park by the local authority. The high number of
women technicians using local facilities had resulted in insufficient places remaining for other parents in the area. Whatever the rationale, biotech attracts high numbers of women scientists and
technical personnel, and so the crèche facility has presumably resulted in better recruitment and
retention of staff.
In Germany, it is argued that the gender composition of the biotech workforce has shifted
through a mix of demand and supply changes in local labour markets:
The fact that women are employed in this sector above-average is mainly the result of a
specific dynamic within the German employment system. At the beginning of the 1990s
when the number of students in chemistry decreased dramatically as a result of increasing unemployment rates in this field. Therefore women who held a degree in biology had
good job opportunities in the emerging biotechnology industry.
The bioscience case study from Catalonia found that women’s dominance of knowledge
95
work in bioscience, albeit from the supporting technician’s role, is a result of conscious supply side
policy:
The low cost [of biotech functions], however, explains the rise in the number of women.
Generally speaking, women’s salaries in Catalonia are 20% below those of men, which
is in line with an activity rate that is 2.35 higher than that of men. That is, women are
used to receiving lower pay than men. When faced with a low salary, women apparently
decide to accept the working conditions before men do, which has led to an increase in
their numbers in the innovation system, while it also has freed up money on costs to be
invested in infrastructures. Therefore, we can conclude that in the case of Catalonia, the
rise in the presence of women in the innovation system is due not only to their educational level but also to their willingness to accept working conditions which men have
traditionally rejected. This behaviour has led to lower personnel costs. Thanks to women,
then, Catalonia is competing internationally in generating low-cost knowledge.
The case study evidences how the region’s economic strategy is based on providing high
skills (technicians) but at lower rates than other EU regions. This had been achieved by increasing
the number of graduates competing for these jobs. It appears that only women were prepared
to work for the lower salaries on offer, with the consequence that women now dominate these
support roles. This is an example of a strategy with unintended gender consequences, just the
kind of policy that gender impact assessments, one of the tools of gender mainstreaming aims to
highlight, and challenge. The economic policy has had the effect of ‘gendering’ an occupation.
However, it is likely that these Associate Professional and Technical jobs attract higher pay
than the average for women in the regional labour market as a whole. Unfortunately the pay rates
are not available. For analysis we would also need to know if these jobs are contracted: full or part
time, permanent or short term, as contracts also affect pay rates.
Given this information we might assess whether the pay constitutes, what Siltanen has
described as a ‘living wage’ (that is, sufficient to maintain a household with at least one dependent) or a ‘component wage’ (not sufficient to live independently). If it is the latter, then employers
are operating within the ‘breadwinner’ or ‘1.5 earner’ social and economic welfare model. This
assumes the organisation of society and labour markets as consistent with a traditional gender
division of labour.
Such policy assumes that men in the household are earning a ‘living wage’ or family wage,
usually in a full time occupation (or sometimes working two jobs when pay is low), with women
in ‘component rate’, lower responsibility jobs, allowing them to combine paid and unpaid roles in
society. This model and variations of it, has been described as the ‘gender contract’ to reveal the
connection between gender family and labour market organisation. Using this model suppresses
pay rates in ‘women’s work’.
Although not underpinned by a purposive regional policy, EURODITE tourism reports from
Turkey highlight economic migration by significant numbers of women workers from the Russian
Caucuses, to service Russian holiday makers.
These women are seen to ‘create a home from home’. They are ‘transposers’ of ‘home’
cultural ‘norms’ though service jobs such as reception and entertainments, and by enabling
guests to converse in their own language. This then, is the purchase of symbolic knowledge, albeit
96
unrecognised as such and in low paid and undervalued ‘women’s work’. Regional economic policies in combination with gender equality policies have a role to play in such situations by protecting workers from exploitation and valuing their contributions to the economy.
In the absence of gender reflexivity in policy, the noted acknowledgement in the case studies of the importance of gender influence in consumer choice and buying decisions was striking.
Particular examples of the gender-specific targeting of client groups in KIBS (related to watchmaking), automotive, and tourism were provided.
In several cases, recognition of gender differences had created new markets. It had also
led to firms using diversity management to ‘buy-in’ the tacit knowledges of women marketing
professionals, who are presumed to be able to combine professional symbolic knowledges with
essentia-lised tacit knowledges. Firms recognise and have no difficulty in creating brands, communications and services designed to appeal to one or other gender in differing ways, whilst those
responsible for regional development policy seem to be unable or unwilling to adopt such
reflexivity.
Overwhelmingly, participants in the EURODITE case studies viewed the low participation
of women in some sectors and their vertical segregation in others as the result of educational
choices. However, such gendered ‘choices’ are not as a result of innate differences or free unfettered ‘choi-ces’ but rather the mix of gender role socialisation and expectation, parental and
peer influences and the gendering of jobs. With one notable exception, automotive in Germany,
partners reported little or no interest from firms or policy makers in addressing gender stereotyping
in subject choices or occupations.
9.5. Conclusions
Gender economic and social policies at regional level remain at a problem focused governance
stage with consideration mostly related to women’s quantitative participation in employment.
Consequently, the gender gap in horizontal, vertical, and contract segregation is being reinforced
in the transition to the knowledge economy. Women are not realising the benefit of their numerical dominance of higher education. They are underrepresented in the new ‘quality jobs’. Subject
‘choice’ is a significant barrier to their inclusion in the sectors deemed to comprise knowledge
economies, and should be the focus of policy intervention.
Given the rigidities of gender segregation in organising the labour market, not simply in
industry and occupation but in employment contract (full time/part time, employed/self employed,
permanent/temporary), women’s professional and tacit knowledges are under employed. What is
the cost to the economy of the wastage of women’s higher educational qualifications?
A view of the knowledge economy based narrowly on innovation in technology is enabling
advancement for men but perhaps at the expense of knowledge creation in education, health,
cultural, social, business and economic academic sciences, where women are working.
An extension of knowledge transfer projects to social, management and business sciences in the
academy, to education and health in the public and voluntary sectors would better facilitate
women’s contribution.
97
Policy challenges
•
Policies should aim to influence a wider range of knowledges by
- recognising that so called ‘gender-neutral’ policy and programmes are in fact ‘gender
blind’ and thus do not promote inclusion
- developing gender inclusive definitions of the knowledge economy and know-ledge
transfer
- opening up innovation funding to public and voluntary sectors
- making policies for knowledge-relevant sectors, including Higher Education Research
Council funding, subject to gender beneficiary assessments
Policy menu
Undertake gender impact assessment of European, National and Regional economic development
strategies so that they have the effect of ameliorating existing social and economic inequalities, and
actively promote equality through policy, programmes and initiatives
Undertake a gender audit of lead regional policy actors in government and regional economic development administrative bodies. This should include identifying women in middle management and
any actions necessary to enable their progression to lead roles.
Undertake concerted efforts to involve women on regional economic development management
boards
Revisit, and act upon, the legacy of recommendations from European Commission research on
women in science and gender equality research
Undertake a statistical analysis of regional labour markets to identify sectors and occupations where
women are employed in the knowledge economy in order to improve the evidence-base for policymaking
Undertake a review of sector priorities to assess how funding in these areas impacts upon gender
inequalities
98
Part IV: Conclusions: Towards more
Knowledge-Dynamic Policies
On the basis of the background provided in Part II and the empirical results of EURODITE research
presented in Part III, we now move on to the concluding Part IV which sums up the findings and,
not least, the policy challenges that must be addressed in order to pursue regional trajectories to
the knowledge economy for the benefit of Europe and its citizens.
99
100
10. Executive Summary
By Henrik Halkier, Margareta Dahlström, Laura James, Jesper Manniche and Lise Smed Olsen
Leadership in the knowledge economy is a crucial political aspiration in Europe, from the EU’s
Lisbon and Europe 2020 strategies to the countless regions striving to improve their competitive
edge through knowledge-oriented measures. The knowledge economy is, however, a moving target. Therefore, being clear about what characterises knowledge processes in a globalising world
is a prerequisite of effective policy-making. Time has come to reconsider economic development
policies in the light of what we know about the current state of the knowledge economy: in firms
and organisations, in regions and nations, and, indeed, in Europe at large.
”Smart growth
– developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation”
Europe 2020
Economic development policies in Europe, from the EU Structural Funds via national
programmes and regional initiatives, have already moved in directions that are compatible with the
new economic circumstances. Multi-level governance has become pervasive, competitiveness is
the dominant discourse of economic development, and policy instruments have become increasingly knowledge intensive. However, at the same time it is noticeable that many policy initiatives
still operate within the mind set and organisational boundaries of the old industrial society, by
focusing exclusively on one sector of the economy in a particular location and attempting to build
internal networks and knowledge exchange in order to create or strengthen a competitive cluster.
While such strategies can be useful and successful in some cases, in other cases it may create an
inward-looking path dependency that may undermine the success of firms and regions in the long
run. Strong internal knowledge interactions are necessary but not sufficient for successful regions
in the knowledge economy.
The empirical research undertaken within EURODITE through surveys, quantitative analyses, and, not least, an extensive series of in-depth case studies of knowledge in processes of
economic change has shown that it is indeed important to reconsider the development strategies
employed to further the growth of the knowledge economy in Europe and its regions:
•
The importance of anchoring came across strongly in the case studies, and in order to support both the inflow of knowledge from outside the region and its re-circulation within the
region, it is important to have actors in place that can play the role of brokers externally and
internally. Depending on circumstances, this could be a private firm, a regional development
body, a KIBS, or a university. But from the perspective of long-term regional development,
the important thing is to ensure long-term commitment to facilitate knowledge processes
that makes firms and organisations within the region active, knowledgeable and competitive players in the globalising economy. This means ensuring that such knowledge brokers
are open-minded, agile, and outward-looking; something that also requires a high degree of
independence of existing knowledge providers.
101
•
The increasing complexity of global knowledge production chains and the growing role of
combinatorial knowledge were clearly underlined in the case studies. This means that innovation processes involve the bringing together and connection of different knowledge bases of
a variety of actors, who are often located in different technological, sectoral and regional contexts. This constitutes a huge challenge for firms because it makes knowledge management
a crucial activity. It also constitutes a huge challenge for policy-making because it involves
recognising the importance of forms of knowledge (symbolic, gender-based) that have not
traditionally been seen as central to the emerging knowledge economy, moving beyond the
traditional triple-helix and including demand and cultural trends in civil society in socially sustainable innovation processes. It constitutes a challenge because it creates opportunities for
creativity and policy-entrepreneurship but at the same time also underlines that some options
are more likely to succeed than others, namely those where there is a positive fit between
different types of knowledge resources. And, equally important, it constitutes a challenge
to policy-making because it increases the importance of competences and institutions that
are able to bridge different types of knowledge, creatively combine different types of learning processes, draw on the resources from different sectors – and have the ability to reach
outside the geographical area for which policies are being designed.
•
The importance of coordinated and evidence-based policy-making increases when ‘more of
the same’ cannot be expected to be a relevant auto-reply to economic development challenges. In order to achieve coordination between different tiers of government, separate areas
of public policy and many different types of private, public and civic actors, knowing more
about the region, its firms and its wider context, is paramount. Both in terms of improved
statistical data for analysis at the European and national levels, and in the form of in-depth
case studies of the specific circumstances that has lead to success or otherwise of economic
development projects. In order to ensure this, setting up a network of Regional Knowledge
Observatories could be a promising way forward.
In order to promote development of knowledge-economy activities across Europe, one size
does not fit all in terms of public policy. Through extensive quantitative and qualitative research,
EURODITE has shown that there are many paths to the knowledge economy. The “smart regional
specialisation” in the EU 2020 strategy should therefore not simply be translated into an increased
emphasis on existing or new clusters. In practice, an important contribution to knowledge-economic development will be made by creative combination of different types of knowledge. In some
cases this will be achieved by recombining existing knowledge within the region, in other cases by
accessing knowledge outside the region that spark creative recombination and anchoring. Either
way around, not just knowledge but also knowledge about knowledge will be of crucial strategic
importance.
The most important policy implications of the EURODITE project are summarised in the
adjoining box which bring together the conclusions of the preceding chapters of the report. For
illustrative examples, the policy menus at the end of the chapters in Part III of the report can be
consulted.
102
EURODITE policy implications
Strategic challenges
•
Policies should aim to influence a wider range of knowledges, including
- a wider variety of knowledge types and learning processes, including symbolic knowledge about what is important in the civil societies that make up Europe today
- knowledge of new trends and demand patterns in order to integrate production and
consumption dimensions in development strategies
- knowledge that is not immediately economically useful
- knowledge from a wider range of social contexts so that the existing triple helix is complemented by knowledge from other spheres of society
•
In order to further innovation in complex knowledge production chains, policies should aim to
further combinatorial knowledge dynamics by
- giving education/training a more interdisciplinary character in order to equip future employees to key challenges of the knowledge economy
- building interdisciplinary capacities in RDAs, KIBS and other knowledge intermediaries
- supporting knowledge brokers involved in long-term extra-regional knowledge interaction
and link with re-circulation of knowledge within the region to ensure anchoring
- helping to create new proximities (organisational, cognitive, etc.) in addition to geographical proximity by integrating inter-cultural and inter-disciplinary competences in education
and training at all levels
- developing regional competitive edge by recombining existing competences through
open creative platforms that further collaboration across sectors
- improving links between regional knowledge configurations and sectoral knowledge contexts in individual regions
Organisational challenges
•
In order to enhance policy effects in relation to the wider range of knowledges produced by
geographically dispersed actors, increased policy coordination is needed
- between policies pursued by different levels of governance
- between different areas of public policy
- through involvement of many different types of actors; firms, higher education institutions,
regional development agencies and authorities and voluntary organisations
- through recognition of the gendering of employment sectors and occupations of the
knowledge economy
•
Knowledge-intensive policies must be evidence-based in order to create tailor-make packages of policies suiting the complexity of the knowledge economy, something which requires
that
- policies should reflect the diversity of regional knowledge configurations by avoiding
copy-paste from regions perceived as being successful
- improved statistical resources for regional analysis
- gender-impact assessment of economic development strategies
- more resources committed to policy preparation
103
Contributors
Alex Burfitt, National Audit Office, UK
Christophe Carrincazeaux, University of Bordeaux, France
Chris Collinge, University of Birmingham, UK
Phil Cooke, University of Cardiff, UK
Margareta Dahlström, NORDREGIO, Stockholm, Sweden
Frédéric Gaschet, University of Bordeaux, France
Henrik Halkier, Aalborg University, Denmark
Laura James, Institute of Education, University of London, UK
Stewart MacNeill, University of Birmingham, UK
Jesper Manniche, Centre for Regional and Tourism Research, Nexø, Denmark
Lise Smed Olsen, NORDREGIO, Stockholm, Sweden
Alison Parken, Purple & Green, Cardiff, UK
Simone Strambach, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany
104
Suggested Further Readings
Chapter 2
Asheim, B. & Isaksen, A. (2002) ‘Regional innovation systems: the integration of local ‘sticky’
know-ledge and global ‘ubiquitous’ knowledge’, Journal of Technology Transfer, 27, 77-86.
Bachtler, J. & Gorzelak, G. (2007) ‘Reforming EU cohesion policy. A reappraisal of the performance of the Structural Funds’, Policy Studies, 28 (4), 309-26.
Burfitt, A. & Collinge, C. (2007) ‘The discursive constitution of regional knowledge economies. A
case study of the European Lisbon Agenda’, EURODITE research paper. Available from http://
www.byforskning.dk/centret/gaesteprofs/discoursepaper.doc.
Etzkowitz, H. & Dzisah, J. (2008) ‘Rethinking development: circulation in the triple-helix’, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 20, 653-66.
Marin, P. L. & Siotis, G. (2008) ‘Public policies towards research joint venture: institutional design
and participants’ characteristics’, Research Policy, 37, 1057-65.
Raines, P. (Ed.) (2002) Cluster Development and Policy. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Rutten, R. & Boekema, F. (2007) ‘A Future for the Learning Region’, in R. Rutten and F. Boekema
(Eds.), The Learning Region. Foundations, State-of-the Art, Future. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Walby, S., H. Gottfried, K. Gottschall & Osawa, M. (2007), Gendering the Knowledge Economy:
Comparative Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Webster, J. (2007), ‘Changing European gender relations: gender equality policy concerning employment and the labour market’, Policy Synthesis of EU Research Results Series 6.
Chapter 3
Bachtler, J. & Yuill, D. (2007) ‘Regional policy in Western Europe: taking stock of the shift in paradigm’, RUFIS Beiträge zur Ballundsraumforschung 2007 (10).
Boschma, R. & Iammarino, S. (2005) ‘Related variety, trade linkages, and regional growth in Italy’,
Economic Geography, 85 (3), 289-311.
Cooke, P. (2005) ‘Proximities, Knowledges and Innovation Biographies’. Presented at the RSA
International Conference. Aalborg, 28-31 May 2005.
105
Cooke, P. (2009) Co-evolutionary transition models: from industrial economy towards knowledge
economy. Presented at EURODITE Meeting, Birmingham, 30 March 2009.
Halkier, H. (2006) Institutions, Discourse and Regional Development. The Scottish Development
Agency and the Politics of Regional Policy. Brussels: PIE Peter Lang.
Halkier, H. (2010) Regional Policy in European Regions. A Survey of Regional Development
Agency Policies and their Knowledge Implications – Final report for EURODITE WP1c, July 2010.
Aalborg, CRU Centre for Regional Development, Aalborg University.
Halkier, H. & Danson, M. (1997) ‘Regional development agencies in Europe: a survey of key characteristics and trends’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 4 (3), 243-56.
Kaiser, R. (2009) WP8 Governance Cloud Intermediate Report. Presented at EURODITE meeting,
Brussels, 23-24 September 2009.
Parken, A. (2009) WP8 Gender Cloud Intermediate Report. Presented at EURODITE meeting,
Brussels, 23-24 September 2009.
Östhol, A. & Svensson, B. (Eds.) (2002) Partnership Responses – Regional Governance in the
Nordic States. Nordregio Report.
Chapter 4
Asheim, B., Coenen, L., Moodysson, J. & Vang, J. (2007), ‘Constructing knowledge-based regional advantage: implications for regional innovation policy’, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 7, 140-55.
Cooke, P. (2005) Proximities, Knowledges and Innovation Biographies. Presented at RSA International Conference, Aalborg, 28-31 May 2005.
Cooke, P., De Laurentis, C., Collinge, C. & MacNeill, S. (2010) Platforms of Innovation: Dynamics
of New Industrial Knowledge Flows. London: Edward Elgar.
Crevoisier, O. & Jeannerat, H. (2009) ‘Territorial Knowledge Dynamics: from the proximity paradigm to multi-location milieus’, European Planning Studies, 17 (8), 1223-41.
Hassink, R. (2005) ‘How to unlock regional economies from path dependency? From learning
region to learning cluster’, European Planning Studies, 13 (4), 521-35.
Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2000) Multi-level Governance and European Integration. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
106
Lagendijk, A. (2000) ‘Learning in non-core regions: towards “intelligent clusters” addressing
business and regional needs’, in Rutten, R. (Ed.) Learning Regions: Theory, Policy and Practice.
London: Edward Elgar.
Rutten, R. & Boekema, F. (Eds.) (2007) The Learning Region. Foundations, State-of-the Art, Future, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Sanderson, I. (2009), ‘Intelligent policy making for a complex world: pragmatism, evidence and
learning’, Political Studies, 57, 699-719.
Chapter 5
Amable B. (2000) ‘Institutional complementarity and diversity of social systems of innovation and
production’, Review of International Political Economy, 7 (4), 645-687.
Antonelli C., Patrucco P.P. & Quatraro F. (2008) ‘Pecuniary knowledge externalities: evidence from
European regions’, LEI & BRICK Working paper n° 03/2008. Available from http://ideas.repec.
org/p/uto/labeco/200803.html
Asheim, B. T. (2007) ‘Differentiated knowledge bases and varieties of regional innovation systems’,
Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 20 (3), 223-241.
Breschi, S. & Malerba, F. (1997) ‘Sectoral innovation systems: technological regimes, schumpeterian dynamics, and spatial boundaries’, in Edquist C. (Ed.) Systems of Innovation. Technologies,
Institutions and Organisations. Pinter Publishers: London.
Breschi, S. (2000) ‘The geography of innovation: a cross-sector analysis’, Regional Studies, 34 (3),
213–229.
Carrincazeaux C. & Gaschet, F. (2006) ‘Knowledge and the diversity of innovation systems: a
comparative analysis of European regions’, Working Papers-GREThA n°2006-29.
Cooke, P. & De Laurentis, C. (2007) ‘Trends and drivers of the knowledge economy in seven business sectors’, EURODITE research paper. Available at http://www.eurodite.bham.ac.uk/partners/
WP _3.asp
Cooke, P. & Piccaluga, A. (Eds.) (2005) Regional Economies as Knowledge Laboratories. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Cooke, P. & Schienstock, G. (2000) ‘Structural competitiveness and learning regions’, Enterprise
and Innovation Management Studies, 1 (3), 265–280.
107
Crevoisier, O. & Jeannerat, H. (2009) ‘Territorial knowledge dynamics: from the proximity paradigm
to multi-location milieus’, European Planning Studies, 17 (8), 1223-1241.
Doloreux, D. (2002) ‘What we should know about regional systems of innovation’, Technology in
Society, 24, 243–263.
Malerba, F. (2002) ‘Sectoral systems of innovation and production’ Research Policy, 31 (2), 247264.
Chapter 6
Asheim, B. T. & Coenen, L. (2005) ‘Knowledge bases and regional innovation systems: comparing
nordic clusters’, Research Policy, 34, 1173-1190.
Boschma, R. (2005) ‘Proximity and innovation: a critical assessment’, Regional Studies, 39 (1)
61–74.
Butzin, A. & Larsson, A. (2010) ‘Tempo-spatial micro dynamics of knowledge based change processes in four Sectors’, unpublished EURODITE research paper.
Butzin, A. & Widmaier, B. (2010) ‘Knowledge biographies: a new approach to study time-space
dynamics of knowledge’, unpublished EURODITE research paper.
Dosi, G., Faillo, M. & Marengo, L. (2008) ‘Organizational capabilities, patterns of knowledge
accumulation and governance structures in business firms’, Organizational Studies, 29 (8 & 9),
1165-1185.
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. & Trow, M. (1996) The New
Production of Knowledge. The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies.
London: Sage Publications
Gereffi, G., Humphrey, J. & Sturgeon, T. (2005) ‘The Governance of global value chains’, Review of
International Political Economy, 12 (1), 78-104.
Malerba, F. (2006) ‘Innovation and the evolution of industries’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics,
16, 3-23.
Nonaka, I. & Toyama, R. (2007) Why do firms differ? The theory of the knowledge-creating firm’,
in, Ichijo, K. & Nonaka, I. (Eds.) (2007) Knowledge Creation and Management. New Challenges for
Managers. Oxford: University Press.
108
Noteboom, B. (2010) The Cognitive Theory of the Firm. Learning, Governance and Dynamic Capabilities. Northampton: Edward Elgar
Strambach, S. (2008) ‘KIBS as drivers of multi-level knowledge dynamics’, International Journal for
Services Technology and Management, 10 (2-4), 151-174.
Teece, D. J., Pisano, G. P. & Shuen, A. (1997) ‘Dynamic capabilities and strategic management’,
Strategic Management Journal, 18 (7), 509-533.
Strambach, S. & Stockhorst, J. (2010) ‘Firm Knowledge Dynamics – Distinct Types and their Territorial Organization’, unpublished EURODITE research paper.
Vissers, G. (2010) ‘Proximity and Collaboration in Firm Knowledge Dynamics’, unpublished
EURODITE research paper.
Chapter 7
Asheim, B., Coenen, L. & Vang, J. (2007) ‘Face-to-face, buzz, and knowledge bases: sociospatial
implications for learning, innovation, and innovation policy’, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 25, 655-670.
Bathelt, H. (2007) ‘Buzz-and-pipeline dynamics: towards a knowledge-based multiplier model of
clusters’, Geography Compass, 1, 1282-1298.
Cooke, P. (2002) Knowledge Economies: Learning and Cooperative Advantages. London:
Routledge.
Etzkowitz, H. & Dzisah, J. (2008) ‘Rethinking development: circulation in the triple-helix’ Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 20, 653-666.
James, L., Visser, G., Dahlström, M. & Hedin, S. (2010) Knowledge Anchoring in European Regions, unpublished EURODITE research report.
Leydesdorff, L. (2000) ‘The triple-helix: an evolutionary model of innovation’, Research Policy, 26,
243-255.
Martin, R. & Sunley, P. (2003) ‘Deconstructing clusters: chaotic concept or policy panacea?’, Journal of Economic Geography, 3, 5-35.
Owen-Smith, J. & Powell, W. (2004) ‘Knowledge networks as channels and conduits: the effects
of spillovers in the Boston biotechnology community’, Organizational Science, 15, 2-21.
109
Porter, M. (1998) ‘Clusters and the new economics of competition’, Harvard Business Review,
November-December 1998, 77-90.
Tödtling, F. & Trippl, M. (2005) ‘One size fits all? Towards a differentiated regional innovation policy
approach’, Research Policy, 34, 1203-1219.
Visser, E.-J. & Atzema, O. (2008) With or without clusters: facilitating innovation through a differentiated and combined network approach. European Planning Studies, 16, 1169-1188.
Chapter 8
Asheim, B. (2007) ‘Differentiated knowledge bases and varieties of regional innovation systems’,
Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 20(3), 223 – 241.
Asheim, B., Coenen, L., Moodysson, J. & Vang, J. (2007a) ‘Constructing knowledge-based regional advantage: implications for regional innovation policy’, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 7 (2-5), 140-155.
Asheim, B., Coenen, L. & Vang, J. (2007b) ‘Face-to-Face, buzz and knowledge bases: sociospatial implications for learning, innovation and innovation policy’, Environment and Planning C, 25
(5), 655-670.
Asheim, B., Boschma, T. & Cooke, P. (2007c) Constructing regional advantage: platform policies
based on related variety and differentiated knowledge bases. Papers in Evolutionary Economic
Geography, 07.09. Available at: http://ideas.repec.org/p/egu/wpaper/
Asheim, B. & Hansen, H. (2009) ‘Knowledge bases, talents, and contexts: on the usefulness of
the creative class approach in Sweden’, Economic Geography, 85(4), 425-442.
Gupta, A., Smith, K. & Shalley, C. (2006) ‘The interplay between exploration and exploitation’,
Aca-demy of Management Journal, 49, (4), 693–706.
March, J. (1991) ‘Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning’ Organization Science, 2,
71–87.
Pine II, B. & Gilmore, J. (1999) The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a
Stage. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
110
Chapter 9
Amin, A. & Thrift, N. (Eds.) (1994) Globalization, Institutions and Regional Development in Europe.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burchell, B., Fagan, C., O’Brien, K. & Smith, M. (2007) Working Conditions in the European Union,
European Working Conditions Survey, European Foundation for Improvement in Living and Working Conditions. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2007.
European Commission (2006) Women and Science: Statistics and Indicators. Luxembourg: Office
for Official Publications of the European Communities.
European Commission (2007) From Welfare to Knowfare. A European Approach to Employment
and Gender Mainstreaming in the Knowledge Based Society (WELLKNOW) Final report,
HPSE-CT-2002-00119, DG Research. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
European Commission (2009) SHE Figures: Statistics and Indicators on Gender Equality in Science. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, ISBN 978-92-79-11388-8.
Franco, A. (2007) ‘The concentrations of women and men in sectors of activity’ Statistics In Focus, Population and Social Conditions 53/2007, Eurostat.
Perrons, D. (2004) ‘Understanding social and spatial divisions in the new economy: new media
clusters and the digital divide’, Economic Geography, 80 (10) pp 45 – 64.
Perrons, D. (2005) ‘Gender mainstreaming and gender equality in the new (market) economy: an
analysis of contradictions’, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, 12
(3), 389 – 41.
Siltanen, J. (2002) ‘Full wages and component wages’, in Jackson, S. and Scott, S. (Eds.) Gender: A Sociological Reader. London: Routledge.
Webster, J. (2007) Changing European Gender Relations: Gender Equality Policy Concerning Employment and the Labour Market, Policy Synthesis of EU Research Results Series no 6. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
Yellow Window (2009) Toolkit: Gender in EU Funded Research, Directorate-General for Research,
EUR 23857 EN. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
111
Appendix 1: EURODITE WP5 Reports Analysed in Chapter 7
Case study region
Primary sector(s)
Authors
Antalya
Tourism
Ali Dulupçu, M., Sezgin, A., Demirel, O., Cevher, E.,
Gökhan, O., Sungur, O., Çiftlikli, B. & Göçen, S.
Aquitaine
Photonics & Food and Drink
Carrincazeaux, C., Gaschet, F. & Becue, M.
Baden-Würtemberg
KIBS/Automotive
Strambach, S., Stockhorst, J. & Sandmüller, M.
Bavaria
Biotechnology & New Media
Kaiser, R., Liecke, M. & Kripp, M.
Bornholm
Food and Drink
Manniche, J., Topsø Larsen, K. & Petersen, T.
Bratislava
ICT
Rehak, S., Pastor, R. & Suranova, J.
Centro
Biotechnology
Vale, M., Carvalho, L. & Silva, S.
North Jutland
Tourism
Halkier, H. & Berg Schmidt, P.
North Rhine Westphalia
Tourism
Butzin, A. & Widmaier, B.
Northwest Switzerland
New Media/Tourism
Jeannerat, H. & Crevoisier, O.
Skåne
New Media/Tourism
Dahlström, M., Östberg, S., Dymén, C., Hedin, S.,
Henriksson, S. & Smed Olsen, L.
Slovenia
ICT
Stanovnik, P. & Murovec, N.
Southeast Lower Saxony
Automotive
Blöcker, A. & Jürgens, U.
Västra Götaland
Automotive
Larsson, A.
Venice
Nanotechnology
Finotto, V.
Wageningen
Biotechnology
Vissers, G.
West Midlands
Automotive & New Media
MacNeill, S., James, L., Collinge, C. & Staines, A.
112
Endnotes
1
European Commission (1993) Growth, Competitiveness, Employment: The challenges
and ways forward into the 21st century, White Paper, Com (93) 700. Brussels, European
Commission, p 58.
2
Barroso, J. M. (2009) Political guidelines for the next Commission. Brussels, European
Commission.
3
European Commission (2009) Reviewing Community innovation policy in a changing
world, COM(2009) 442 final. Brussels, European Commission.
4
European Commission (2009) Reviewing Community innovation policy in a changing
world, COM(2009) 442 final. Brussels, European Commission.
5
European Council (2009) Council Conclusions of 12 May 2009 on a Strategic Framework
for European Cooperation in Education and Training (‘ET 2020’). Brussels, European
Council.
6
EU Commission (1996) Incorporating Equal Opportunities for Women and Men into All
Community Policies and Activities. Communication from the Commission. COM (96) 67
final, 21.02.1996. Brussels, EU Commission.
7
European Commission (2006) Women and Science: Statistics and Indicators. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
8
European Council (2000) Presidency Conclusions, Lisbon European Council 23-24
March 2000. Brussels, EU.
9
Porter, M. (1998) On Competition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
10
Reworked on the basis of Halkier, H. (2006) Institutions, Discourse and Regional Development. The Scottish Development Agency and the Politics of Regional Policy. Brussels:
PIE Peter Lang, Chapter 3.
11
Reworked on the basis of Halkier, H. (2006) Institutions, Discourse and Regional Development. The Scottish Development Agency and the Politics of Regional Policy. Brussels:
PIE Peter Lang; Cooke, P. (2005) Proximities, Knowledges and Innovation Biographies.
Presented at RSA International Conference, Aalborg, 28-31 May 2005.
12
Kaiser, R. (2009) WP8 Governance Cloud Intermediate Report. Presented at EURODITE
meeting. Brussels, 23-24 September 2009.
13
EU 27 except the two most recent members (Bulgaria, Romania) and the three micro
states (Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus). 273 regional development bodies as potential objects of investigation, but around one third of these proved on closer inspection to have
only rudimentary websites or to be inaccessible to the language skills of the researchers
(weak on Slavonic and Finno-Ugric), and eventually a total number of 181 organisations
were included in the survey undertaken by Susanne Bendtsen at Aalborg University.
14
Halkier, H. & Danson, M. (1997) ‘Regional development agencies in Europe: a survey of
key characteristics and trends’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 4 (3), 243-56.
15
The bottom-up firm-level principle guiding the analysis implies that a policy is a policy,
no matter whether it is a small local initiative or a major EU-sponsored programme. For
each of the 148 policies, their individual characteristics have been assessed on the basis
113
of the descriptions in the case studies, and on the basis of this the relative importance
of e.g. particular development strategies or policy instruments has been calculated. In
order to take into account the uncertainties involved in classifying policies on the basis of
descriptions by other research teams, the percentage shares have been transformed into
four broad categories (absent, present, common, very common) represented graphically
by an increasing number of blue tennis balls.
114
16
Halkier, H. (2009) WP8 Policy Cloud Intermediate Report: Tourism. Kaiser, R. (2009),
WP8 Policy Cloud Intermediate Report: Biotech. MacNeill, S. & A. Stocchetti (2009) WP8
Policy Cloud Intermediate Report: Automotives. Manniche, J. (2009) WP8 Policy Cloud
Intermediate Report: Food. Smed Olsen, L. & M. Dahlström (2009), WP8 Policy Cloud Intermediate Report: New Media. Pastor, R. (2009) WP8 Policy Cloud Intermediate Report:
ICT. Smed, K. M. & H. Halkier (2009) WP8 Policy Cloud Intermediate Report: Knowledge
Intensive Business Services. All papers presented at the EURODITE meeting, Brussels,
23-24 September 2009.
17
Cooke, P., De Laurentis, C., Collinge, C. & MacNeill, S. (2010) Platforms of Innovation:
Dynamics of New Industrial Knowledge Flows. London: Edward Elgar.
18
The bottom-up firm-level principle guiding the analysis implies that a policy is a policy,
no matter whether it is a small local initiative or a major EU-sponsored programme. For
each of the 148 policies, their individual characteristics have been assessed on the basis
of the descriptions in the case studies, and on the basis of this the relative importance
of e.g. particular development strategies or policy instruments has been calculated. In
order to take into account the uncertainties involved in classifying policies on the basis of
descriptions by other research teams, the percentage shares have been transformed into
four broad categories (absent, present, common, very common) represented graphically
by an increasing number of blue tennis balls.
19
Cooke, P., De Laurentis, C., Collinge, C. & MacNeill, S. (2010) Platforms of Innovation:
Dynamics of New Industrial Knowledge Flows. London: Edward Elgar.
20
See further in chapter 2.
21
See further in chapter 2.
22
See further in chapter 2
23
Amable B. (2000) ‘Institutional complementarity and diversity of social systems of innovation and production’, Review of International Political Economy, 7(4), 645-687.
24
Due to the lack of data, only Members States of the UE15 were disaggregated at the
regional NUTS 1 (Belgium, Greece, Germany, United Kingdom) or NUTS 2 level (Austria,
Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden). New member
States were considered only at the national level, as well as Denmark and Luxembourg.
25
Scientific profiles are based on public research spending and scientific publications (by
fields) ; technological profiles are based on private research spending, human resources
in science and technology and patents (by domains) ; employment by sector and
concentration define the industrial structure ; educational profiles draw upon data on
educational level of the population. All indicators are weighted by a regional indicator
(population or GDP in most of the cases).
26
Antonelli C., Patrucco P.P. & Quatraro F. (2008) ‘Pecuniary knowledge externalities:
evidence from European regions’, LEI & BRICK Working papers n° 03/2008, available at
http://ideas.repec.org/p/uto/labeco/200803.html
27
For detailed methodological information, see Butzin, A., E. Helmsträdter, et al. (2007),
‘Guidelines to the WP6 Firm Level Case Studies’. Birmingham, EURODITE.
28
See further in chapter 7 of this report.
29
For detailed information on proximity dimension and their impacts see Boschma, R. A.
(2005), ‘Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment’, Regional Studies 39 (1), 61-74.
30
Nonaka, I. & Toyama, R. (2007) ‘Why do firms differ? The theory of the knowledge-creating firm’, in Ichijo, K. & Nonaka, I. (Eds.) (2007) Knowledge Creation and Management.
New Challenges for Managers. Oxford: University Press.
31
For reasons of confidentiality, these reports are not in the public domain. Interested readers should therefore contact the authors for further information about individual casestudies.
32
Bathelt, H. (2007) ‘Buzz-and-pipeline dynamics: towards a knowledge-based multiplier
model of clusters’, Geography Compass, 1 (6), 1282-98.
33
Moodysson, J. (2008) ‘Principles and practices of knowledge creation: on the organisation of ‘buzz’ and ‘pipelines’ in life science communities’, Economic Geography, 84,
449-69.
34
See Appendix 1 for a list of reports used. A full account of the methodology used to collect the data presented here see Crevoisier, O., E. Helmsträdter, et al. (2007), The Guidelines for the Empirical Research of the Work Packages 5 and 6. Birmingham, EURODITE.
35
Parken, A. & Rees, T. (2009) Gender and the Knowledge economy in Wales, case study
for Eurodite WP2 (f), EURODITE: Regional Trajectories to the Knowledge Economy: A
Dynamic model, Project no: 006187.
115
Figure 5.2. A typology of regional configurations of knowledge in Europe.
Source: Carrincazeaux & Gaschet 2006.