Within the European context of innovation for growth, public and corporate actors are faced with pressing questions concerning innovation policy and the return on public and private
investment in innovation at the regional level. To help them answer these questions, researchers in the field of Geography of Innovation propose interesting developments and new perspectives
for the analysis of localized innovation processes, interactions between science, technology and industry, and their impact on regional growth and competitiveness, offering new foundations
for designing and evaluating public policies.
The aim of this book is firstly to highlight major recent methodological advances in the Geography of Innovation, particularly concerning the measurement of spatial knowledge externalities
and their impact on agglomeration effects. Strategic approaches using microeconomic data have also contributed to showing how firms’ strategies may interact with the local environment and
impact upon agglomeration dynamics.
Interesting new results emerge from the application of these new methodologies to the analysis of innovation dynamics in European regions and this book shows how they can help revisit some of
the main tenets of received wisdom concerning the rationale and impact of public policies on the Geography of Innovation. This book was previously published as a special issue of Regional
Studies.
