The need for informed and effective insights into key concepts and models of regional development and growth, from an endogenous growth perspective, has risen over the past decade. These recent advances address in particular local and regional assets and characteristics comprising inter alia creativity, knowledge, innovation forces and entrepreneurship. Access to and exploitation of these modern forms of human and social capital are of paramount importance for the dynamic regional economic environment in a city or region. This volume offers an overview and critical treatment of the spatial-economic roots, opportunities and impacts of new growth strategies, mainly from an evidence-based perspective. In the various contributions to this volume, relevant findings and strategic options are interpreted and discussed from both an analytical and a policy perspective to help cultivate creativity, human capital development and innovation as well as entrepreneurial activity, with a view to exploit the drivers of economic development, in order to strengthen the competitive edge of cities and regions.

In the global economy, regional development and innovation are increasingly an imperative to increase the competitive edge of EU economies. While European regions are different in many ways, the innovation capacity of regions, clusters and firms is what makes them capable of building up new and diversified pathways for sustainable growth. For this reason, Innovation Drivers and Regional Innovation Strategies looks to analyze different knowledge drivers (e.g. entrepreneurial or policy-orientation; scientific and practice-based knowledge modes; institutional innovation support) that influence the innovative and competitive capacity of regions, clusters and firms in Europe. The aim of this volume is to develop an in-depth understanding of these drivers and their implications for the way in which regional and cluster growth may be upgraded. Innovation Drivers and Regional Innovation Strategies examines the construction of new innovation pathways for regions and clusters in different geographical contexts. The main themes are cluster evolution, regional innovation systems and business innovation modes and capabilities. The objectives are centred on exploring the logic and mechanisms that can be activated as a means to promote innovation and competitiveness within regions and, within these, across and within firms. Aimed at researchers and academics in the field, this is a thoughtful and innovative new volume that helps define the academic debate.

In present digital times the focus is on globalization and the dynamics and complexities that it creates. However, in spite of being dominated by technology the world remains populated by human beings practising a localized everyday life. This contrast should challenge every researcher who is concerned with business and societal development and how that is contingent upon the institutional and cultural (national) context. In this book, Swedish researchers reflect upon entrepreneurship as a possible mediator between local and global economic and social concerns. Using as a point of departure the tensions between a functional, footloose rationale and a territorial rationale tied to place, the authors provide different aspects on regional development in a globalised world. A shared concern is the importance of recognizing the many appearances of entrepreneurship that brings it beyond being an innovative force in the market. The book thus presents different strategies and tactics for pursuing localized economic development and it also critically reviews adopted public support programmes and measures of the (local) business climate. The conclusive message is that only by bridging the functional and territorial views will it be possible to sustain, and possibly enhance, economic and social life in local places as well as in our shared world. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Planning Studies.

What is the role of culture in the innovation dynamic of small firms within the context of their territorial environments? How do shared values, beliefs and practices underpin the knowledge production process that leads to innovation? In what way do symbolic aspects of social life shape European SMEs’ innovation processes? This volume gives an extensive insight into the complex links between culture and innovation in one of the key agents of economic life: SMEs and micro firms. The chapters employ different analytical and methodological strategies in regions of Europe to identify dimensions of culture, especially values, norms, skills and institutions, and to scrutinize which specific components of culture are relevant to firm innovation and to the more general dynamics of regional innovation. The original research presented shows how small firms learn, interact, compete and collaborate with other key agents of the innovation system. Taken as a whole, the volume points the way towards a more comprehensive framework for understanding the nature of innovation in SMEs and micro firms. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of European Planning Studies.

Innovation, which in essence is the generation of knowledge and its subsequent application in the marketplace in the form of novel products and processes, has become the key concept in inquiries concerning the contemporary knowledge based economy. Geography plays a decisive role in the underlying processes that enable and support knowledge formation and diffusion activities. Place specific characteristics are considered especially important in this context, however, more recently investigation into innovative capacity of places has also turned its attention to external knowledge inputs through innovation networks, and increasingly recognize the evolutionary character of the processes that lead to knowledge creation and subsequent application in the marketplace. The chapters that comprise this book are embedded at the intersection of the dynamic processes of knowledge production and creative destruction. The first three contributions all discuss the role of global innovation networks, in the context of territorial and/or sectoral dynamics, while the following two chapters investigate the evolution of regional or metropolitan knowledge economies. The final three contributions adopt a knowledge base approach in order to provide insight into the organisation of innovation networks and spatiality of knowledge flows. This book was published in a special issue of European Planning Studies.

This book discusses the importance of innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in supporting regional competitiveness. It also encourages academics, business professionals and policy-makers to rethink innovation ecosystems as drivers of regional competitiveness, demonstrating the complex interactions between regional economic and social actors, and their impact on regional competitiveness. Further, the book examines the role of entrepreneurship and innovation policies in different regions (e.g. lagging regions, rural regions, etc.), and describes critical success factors in multi-level technologies and innovation policies and strategies.

In The Capacity to Innovate, Sarah Giest provides insight into the collaborative and absorptive capacities needed to provide public support to local innovation through cluster organizations. The book offers a detailed view of the vertical, multi-level, and horizontal dynamics in clusters and cluster policy and addresses how they are managed and supported. Using the biotechnology field as an example, Giest highlights challenges in the collaborative efforts of public bodies, private companies, and research institutes to establish a successful ecosystem of innovation in this sector. The book argues that cluster policy in collaboration with cluster organizations should focus on absorptive and collaborative capacity elements missing in the cluster context in order to improve performance. Currently, governments operate at different levels – from the local to the supranational – in order to support clusters, and cluster policies are often pursued alongside other programs, leading to uncoordinated efforts and ineffective cluster strategies. The Capacity to Innovate advocates for a coordinated effort by government and cluster organizations to support capacity elements lacking within the specific cluster context.