The Lisbon Agenda and Innovation-oriented Cohesion Policy: A New Challenge for Economic Integration among the EU Regions

The EU’s cohesion policy should now be confluent with the goals of the Lisbon strategy by promoting growth and employment. In this context the promotion of regional innovation systems has become important in the EU for guaranteeing long-term regional economic growth. This paper investigates the major determinants of varying degrees of innovation promotion from one region to another provided in the context of the EU’s regional support program for the periods 2000~2006 and 2007~2013. While the new innovation-oriented policy appears to be incompatible with the goal of economic convergence among European regions, our research findings further question the consistency between the cohesion policy’s objectives and its practice.