Urenio Watch Watch: Innovative Cities & Regions

Innovation in Regional Systems

Bianca Potì and Roberto Basile developed a model to explain divergences in region/ country propensity to innovation through a system of innovation approach. They started from the idea that externalities and spillovers have positive effects on the innovative performance of firms, and focused on three types of interactions: (1) collaborative and network inter-firms relations; (2) sectoral-regional clusters; and (3) inter-institutional (industry-public research institutes) relations. Continue reading

EU R&D Figures, 2005

European Commission Press release (19 July 2005) point out that ‘The 2005 key figures show that EU R&D intensity is close to stagnation. Growth of R&D investment as a % of GDP has been slowing down since 2000 and only grew 0.2% between 2002 and 2003. Europe devotes a much lower share of its wealth to R&D than the US and Japan (1.93% of GDP in the EU in 2003, as compared to 2.59% in the US and 3.15% in Japan). Continue reading