Over the last two decades many European governments have pursued ambitious research and development (R&D) policies with the aim of fostering innovation and economic growth in peripheral regions of Europe. The question is whether these policies are paying off. Arguments such as the need to reach...

Research and Development activities are key elements in the search of more productive economic outcomes, the generation of new economic sectors and, in general, of a better economic performance at the micro and macro levels. In many European countries, the responsibility of the design and...

Research, development and innovation activities have become key sources of competitive advantage, which is one of the main factors behind the wellbeing of citizens living in a given territory. Being aware of this fact, public administrations at different administrative levels have encouraged the...

This paper sheds light on the policy coordination concept and explores its implications for science, technology, and innovation (STI) policies at the regional level. In particular it analyzes whether systemic and complex STI policies entail a larger and more complex need for coordination. We...

One of the most basic conditions required for drawing lessons from regional benchmarking is to compare homogeneous regions and learn from equivalents. This condition is not met when regions for comparison are chosen based on their high performance, overlooking their regional context or...

Benchmarking analysis facilitates the formulation of competitiveness and innovation strategies. It also helps in the monitoring and assessment of the initiatives that have taken place. The aim of this work is to provide an instrument to facilitate the development of the three stages that...

How do regions diversify over time? Inspired by recent studies, we argue that regions diversify into industries that make use of capabilities in which regions are specialized. As the spread of capabilities occurs through mechanisms that have a strong regional bias, we expect that capabilities...

This paper investigates whether related variety, among other types of spatial externalities, affected regional growth in Spain at the NUTS 3 level during the period 1995-2007. We found evidence that related variety matters for growth across regions, especially when measured with the assistance...