A special issue of International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development
Deep and broad economic integration in Europe and especially within the European Union has been taking place mostly on an intra- and cross-regional basis transcending national frontiers and identities and being driven by affinities, complementarities and synergies at the regional level.
The presence, role and impact of this phenomenon as a driver of regional economic development and especially in the form of small and medium enterprise formation and growth is the motivation for this Special Issue. In particular, the focus is on profiling, analysing, benchmarking, and modelling in socio-technical terms, ways and means that creativity, invention and innovation are manifested and drive economic development in regions such as the Balkan and Baltic regions within the EU, as well as other parts of the world. Our focus is on deriving insights from comparing and contrasting similarities and differences and critical success and failure factors within and across the regions under study.
The targeted audience for this Special Issue includes policy makers as well as academic researchers and practitioners of technology innovation and entrepreneurship in the regions of focus as well as the EU and the world as a whole as the inter-regional and cross-regional integration, development and convergence phenomenon is replicated around the earth.
In this context, this issue will promote the identification and articulation of insights that could inform both public sector policies and private sector practices to render them more effective and efficient. A series of recommendations for policy makers and practitioners would ideally emerge from this comparative, conceptual and empirical research contributing to the growing literature on the role of knowledge on technology, innovation and entrepreneurship and in particular with regards to the role of knowledge creation, diffusion and use in local, national, regional, and global innovation networks and knowledge clusters that form the underpinnings of the knowledge economy and society.
The intent is to encompass and integrate diverse theoretical perspectives, including, regional development economics and sociology of innovation, as well as regional science, and, technology, innovation and knowledge management research as follows:
- Select industries of focus would be biotechnology, advanced materials and ICT (as well as cross-disciplinary, emerging threads such as nano/bio-technology, MEMS, bio-informatics, etc) and in each region and/or country therein, innovation networks and knowledge clusters based on such industries would be identified and studied.
- This is not to exclude low and medium technology sectors and regional innovation networks. For instance, innovation practices, clusters and networks in areas and sectors such as construction, services, maritime and marine technologies, cleaner forms of energy production, eco-innovation, etc.
- Public-private partnerships for research and technology development, transfer, deployment and commercialisation would also be studied in this context, and, in particular, their relationships and roles in catalysing and accelerating the formation and growth of networks, clusters and individual new ventures.
- Top-down policies and bottom-up initiatives would be documented and reviewed to identify what works and what does not, how and why in each region, country and industry.
Deadline for Submissions: 31 May, 2008
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