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"Constructing Regional Advantage: Platform Policies Based on Related Variety and Differentiated Knowledge Bases" 

Professor Bjørn Asheim, University of Lund, Sweden

Venue: 17 pm, March 11 2008 Forfás, Wilton House, Wilton Place, Dublin.

Professor Bjørn Asheim has since 2001 been the chair in economic geography at the Department of Social and Economic Geography, University of Lund, Sweden, and is co-founder and deputy director of the new Centre of Excellence in innovation system research at Lund University called CIRCLE (Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy) from 2004. CIRCLE has just won the prestigious 10-year Linnaeus grant from the Swedish Research Council as one of 20 excellent research milieus covering all sciences.  He was a member of the international advisory committee for the Canadian Innovation Systems Research Network and MCRI Clusters project (2001-2005) and continues as a member in their new five year project (2006-2010) on ‘Globalisation and Regional Innovation Systems. He is also a member of the International Scientific Panel of the Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (KITE), Newcastle University as well as of the International Advisory Board of the Centre for European Studies on Territorial Development, University of Durham, UK. He was Editor of Economic Geography 2000-2006 and of Regional Studies 2003-05, and member of the editorial board of several journals including Economic Geography, European Planning Studies and Journal of Economic Geography, and of the International Advisory Board of Routledge Studies in Economic Geography. He has served as an international expert for UNCTAD, OECD (mission to Scottish Enterprise in 2002 and to Cantabria in 2006) and EU/DG XVI and Research (rapporteur in Expert Group on ‘Creating Regional Advantage 2004-2006).

He was coordinator of a EU/TSER project on “SME Policy and the Regional Dimension of Innovation” (1998-2000), and ongoing research includes a European Science Foundation (ESF)/Swedish Research Council project on ‘Technology, talent and tolerance’, which he also coordinates, with participation from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland (2004-2006). He has just got funding for a partly following up of this project from VINNOVA for a project on ‘Talent mobility and skills provision in dynamic labour markets’ (2007-10). New research projects include a Swedish Research Council funded project on the globalisation of R&D and Innovation focusing on India and China (2007-2009) as well as a new ESF project on ‘Constructing Regional Advantage’ with participation from Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria, Check republic and Turkey (2007-2010). He is also participating in two biotech projects; one in the Öresund region funded by Öresund research, and one comparative European funded by Swedish Research Council, which he coordinate, with participation from Sweden, UK, Italy and Switzerland (2005-2007), and he was in charge of a newly completed Nordic comparative project on SMEs and regional innovation systems.

Abstract

Globalisation pressures force European regions to enhance their competitiveness. Regions are considered a key level where innovation pressures are shaped, coordinated and governed through localized capabilities. Often competitive advantages do not emerge spontaneously, but are the results of collective actions and initiatives taken by firms, research organizations and governments at various levels. Policies for constructing regional advantage cannot be based on one ‘best practice’ model but should reflect the different conditions and problems of the respective regions. These vary between types of Regional Innovation Systems as well as the dominating knowledge base of local industries. So far very little is known about how policies for constructing regional advantage can work in such different settings.