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This paper examines the ways by which organizational and institutional features of regional innovation systems shape smart specialization practices in less-developed, intermediate and advanced regions. Drawing on research from 15 European regions, it shows that the implantation of smart specialization creates challenges in all three types of regions. At the same time, there is evidence that smart specialization supports policy-learning and system-building efforts in less-developed regions and facilitates policy reorientation and system transformation in more advanced regions. © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This paper contributes to the literature on new regional industrial path development by highlighting the multiple roles that demand can play in regional development. We develop a conceptual framework relating different roles of demand to different types of new path development. Based on the literature on regional development, we differentiate between the role of demand as anonymous consumer, sophisticated buyer, active co-developer, public procurer and norm and value setter. These roles influence different types of new path development, including path extension, path upgrading, path importation, path diversification and path creation. New path development can be triggered by changing norms and values in the society (e.g. environmental concerns and the growing demand for cleaner technologies), public procurement for innovation (governments demand new products or services and thereby steer economic development) or by users modifying existing products or developing novel solutions that are not yet on the market (e.g. user innovations). The various roles of demand, as well as its effect on new regional industrial path development, depend on the geographical context. We argue that taking a nuanced view towards demand will add a novel dimension to the debate on new path development in regions. © The Author(s) 2019.

In recent years, we have witnessed an intensive scholarly discussion about the limitations of traditional inward looking regional innovation strategies. New policy approaches put more emphasis on promoting the external connectedness of regions. However, the institutional preconditions for collaboration across borders have received little attention so far. The aim of this paper is to investigate both conceptually and empirically how policy network organizations can target the institutional underpinnings and challenges of cross-border integration processes and knowledge flows. The empirical part of the paper consists of an analysis of activities performed by four cross-border policy network organizations in the Öresund region (made up of Zealand in Denmark and Scania in Sweden) and how they relate to the creation of institutional preconditions and the removal of institutional barriers. Our findings suggest that cross-border policy network organizations have limited power to change or facilitate the adaptation of formal institutions directly. They mainly rely on mobilizing actors at other territorial levels for improving the formal institutional conditions for knowledge flows. Informal institutions, on the other hand, can be targeted by an array of different tools available to policy network organizations. We conclude that institutional preconditions in cross-border regions are influenced by collective activities of multiple actors on different territorial levels, and that regional actors mainly adapt to the existing institutional framework rather than change it. For innovation policy, this implies that possibilities for institutional change and adaptation need to be considered in regional innovation policy strategies.

Background: This project concerns advancing knowledge, methods, and logic for user participation in coproduction of health innovations. Such advancement is vital for several reasons. From a user perspective, participation in coproduction provides an opportunity to gain real influence over goal definition, design, and implementation of health innovations, ensuring that the solution developed solves real problems in right ways. From a societal perspective, it's a mean to improve the efficiency of health care and the implementation of the Patient Act. As for industry, frameworks and knowledge of coproduction offer tools to operate in a complex sector, with great potential for innovation of services and products. Objective: The fundamental objective of this project is to advance knowledge and methods of how user participation in the coproduction of health innovations can be applied in order to benefit users, industry, and public sector. Methods: This project is a synergy project, which means that the objective will be accomplished through collaboration and meta-analysis between three subprojects that address different user groups, apply different strategies to promote human health, and relate to different parts of the health sector. Furthermore, subprojects focus on distinctive stages in the spectrum of innovation, with the objective to generate knowledge of the innovation process as a whole. The project is organized around three work packages related to three challenges-coproduction, positioning, and realization. Each subproject is designed such that it has its own field of study with clearly identified objectives but also targets work packages to contribute to the project as a whole. The work on the work packages will use case methodology for data collection and analysis based on the subprojects as data sources. More concretely, logic of multiple case studies will be applied with each subproject representing a separate case which is similar to each other in its attent

Regional Innovation Systems (RISs) come in many shapes. Current RIS typologies, however, pay insufficient attention to institutional factors and as a consequence they fall short of capturing an essential source of variety of RISs in a systematic way. This chapter contributes to a further conceptual development of the RIS approach by capturing regional variety not only in terms of actors and networks but also in terms of institutions. It is shown that an institutional perspective can enrich existing RIS typologies by providing insights into the distinctive institutional frameworks of different RIS types and their particular institutional bottlenecks. Three main causes of institutional bottlenecks are identified, that is, lack of or poorly developed institutions, inappropriate institutions, and contradicting/poorly aligned institutions. As shown in this chapter the institutional perspective advocated here holds a strong potential to contribute to a further conceptual development of the RIS approach. © Springer International Publishing AG 2018. All rights reserved.

This chapter reflects on how evolutionary economic geography (EEG) can be extended to incorporate public policy in its explanations of path development. A weakness of EEG is the poor conceptualisation of the role of the state (central, regional, local) in regional path development. It is therefore argued that a multi-scalar perspective of policy is required and that a large set of policies deserve attention. Oxfordshire in the UK is used to explore the link between public policy and path development. © Springer International Publishing AG 2018. All rights reserved.

Background: This project concerns advancing knowledge, methods and logics for user-participation in coproduction of health innovations. Such advancement is vital for several reasons. From a user perspective, participation in coproduction provides an opportunity to gain real influence over goal definition, design and implementation of health innovations, ensuring that the solution developed solves real problems in right ways. From a societal perspective, it’s amean to improve the efficiency of healthcare and the implementation of the Patient Act. As for industry, frameworks and knowledge of coproduction offers tools to operate in a complex sector, with great potential for innovation of services and products. Objectives: The fundamental objective of this project is to advance knowledge and methods of how user- participation in the coproduction of health innovations can be applied in order to benefit users, industry and public sector. Method: This project is a synergy project, which means that the objective will be accomplished through collaboration and meta-analysis between three sub-projects that address different user groups, apply different strategies to promote human health and relate to different parts of the health sector. The work on the work packages will use case methodology for data collection and analysis based on the subprojects as data sources. More concretely, a logic of a multiple case studies will be applied with each subproject representing a separate case which is similar to each other in its attention to user-participation in coproduction, but different regarding e.g. context and target groups. At the synergy level the framework methodology will be used to handle and analyse the vast amount of information generated within the subprojects. Results and conclusions: By addressing the objective of this project, we will create new knowledge on how to manage challenges to health innovation associated with the coproduction process, the positioning of solut

Over the last two decades, the notion of institutional thickness has become a key reference for a large body of work that has sought to provide profound insights into the link between institutions and regional development. However, only few attempts have been made to reassess the concept, to improve its methodology, and to reflect on its empirical application. The aim of this article is to revise the original concept of institutional thickness. We draw on and seek to contribute to current work in economic geography and related disciplines on the role of organizations and institutions in regional development. We identify some crucial limitations and provide suggestions for how they can be addressed. It is argued that much can be gained by (1) explicitly elaborating on the relation between the organizational and institutional dimensions of thickness, (2) moving beyond overly static views on thickness, (3) developing a multiscalar approach to thickness, and (4) identifying features for assessing thickness in absolute and relative terms. © 2017 Clark University.

The aim of this paper is to explore the relation between the critical knowledge base of firms and how firms respond to incentives embedded in the institutional framework surrounding them. The analysis gives us a better understanding of the complex development of the food sector in Southern Sweden in the past decades. Theoretically, the paper combines concepts of path dependency and knowledge bases, and applies this framework to a set of development trajectories of firms in the Scanian food sector. Three development paths are identifiedpath extension, path renewal and new path creation. Findings illustrate that these are rooted in different knowledge base combinations of firms, which make them respond differently to similar place- and sector-specific institutional conditions.

Institutional conditions and innovation systems: on the impact of regional policy on firms in different sectors, Regional Studies. This paper deals with institutional conditions in regional innovation systems: how institutions affect the organization of innovation activities among firms; and in what ways regional policy initiatives can be supportive. The analysis draws on data on innovation networks, activities, and regional policies targeting the life science, media and food industries in Scania, Sweden. The study takes account of the ways in which regional policies can impact individuals' and organizations' action in relation to each other by being internalized. It is argued that such ability is decisive for the success or failure of the policy initiative.

The aim of this paper is to explain the complex development of the food sector in Southern Sweden in the past decades, focusing on the relation between institutions and innovation practices and taking into account the diversity of actors composing the sector. The paper develops a theoretical framework combining concepts of path dependency and knowledge bases, and applies it empirically. The three paths identified in the paper resemble path development via radical change, incremental change and diversification., Preprint version of: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2015.1092502

This paper deals with policy measures in the regional innovation system of Scania, Southern Sweden. Focus is on the innovation policy requirements of actors representing industries that draw on different knowledge bases. Previous studies have identified profound industry-specific differences concerning the organisation of knowledge sourcing between firms and other actors. In correspondence with these findings, industries are also expected to vary with regard to how policy measures aiming to support innovation are perceived and implemented. Still, there is a tendency among regional policy programmes to base their strategies on one ‘best practice’ model, inspired by successful (or sometimes less successful) cases in other parts of the world. Here, regional policy initiatives targeting three distinct industries in Scania, namely life science, food and moving media, are discussed, in particular their ability to meet the specific needs and demands of firms in these industries. The findings reveal that the existing initiatives are customized on a rather generic level and not sufficiently fine-tuned to the particular needs and demands of the respective actors. Policies are recommended to take the specific characteristics of the industrial knowledge base into account in order to provide appropriate support and to become an effective part of the institutional framework of the regional innovation system.

The study raises the question how (if at all) relations with university affect the innovativeness of new media firms in Skåne and to what extent it can be related to the type of knowledge base. The object of the analysis is 36 new media companies in the region. The data was selected using the methods of structured and semi-structured interviews. Open Innovation paradigm, knowledge base and knowledge transfer provide a theoretical framework for the analysis. The analysis reveals that there is a general trend for the innovativeness to grow when the value of „relations with university‟ is growing and really high innovativeness is not possible without academia‟s involvement in a form of „hard‟ or „soft‟ knowledge transfer. The effect of dominating knowledge mode in the company seems to be very small. The majority of the new media companies operates or goes towards the Open Innovation paradigm. Openness, networking, and the use of external knowledge seem to be an important factor leading to innovative activities and together to successful performance in the market. Qualitative analysis shows that while the companies might have more or less formal links with universities, all of them see it as an important actor in their knowledge exchange network. The relations with academia not only provides access to university knowledge or helps to develop new technology, but increases the chance for getting financing (essential input for innovation activities) as existing policies tend to support academia-industry partnership and leads to the changes in company‟s social responsibility activities.

This paper seeks to explain what policy approaches and policy measures are best suited for promoting renewal and transformation in regional economies and what needs and possibilities there are for such policy to change and adapt to new conditions in order to remain efficient. The paper departs from the notion of Smart Specialization, which has become a popular strategy among policy makers recently. We discuss how regional smart specialization strategies influence regional path renewal and path creation and how they are related to and aligned with policy strategies implemented at other territorial scales (local, regional, national, supranational). We distinguish between different levels of policy learning and types of change in relation to path renewal and new path creation. Our main argument is that new regional growth paths require both stability and change within the support structure of the innovation system. Apart from being adaptive and tailor made for the specific preconditions of the regional economy, the regional system must also be resilient and predictable on certain dimensions. Unless smart specialization strategies are able to combine such adaptation and stability, they fail to promote path renewal and new path creation. Our arguments are illustrated with empirical findings from the regional innovation system of Scania, South Sweden.