A comparative analysis of innovation strategy and implementation in the UK: the effects of peripherality

Although the U.K. has a common political system, there are distinct regional differences. These differences are reflected in the outcomes of U.K. Government attempts to devise and implement innovation strategy within all parts of the U.K. Northern Ireland's (NI) regional differences are increased by the province's peripheral location in relation to the rest of the U.K. The aim of this paper is to explore the outcomes of innovation strategy and implementation on an U.K. regional basis. Moreover, the paper seeks to examine the effects of location by comparing the NI results with the other U.K. regions. This paper's focus is on NI; however, the level of analysis is the U.K. This is extremely important as it provides comparative data in order to test whether or not NI does differ from other regions in terms of its level of innovation activity. Data from the Community Innovation Survey shows that NI has a significantly lower level of product innovation, together with the lowest level of novel product innovation and the lowest market share attributed to novel innovations compared to the rest of the U.K. In addition, NI has the fourth lowest level of process innovation (and the lowest level of novel process innovation) in the U.K. Overall, NI can be considered something of an outlier region with regard to product innovation.