Geographical Distribution of the European Knowledge Base Through the Lens of a Synthetic Index.

Advances in knowledge lead to innovation, understood as the development of new ideas that create value for firms and allow them to build regional competitive advantage. While the European Union has placed considerable emphasis on the development of indices measuring phases or aspects of innovation (Innovation Union Scoreboard and Regional Innovation Scoreboard) and competitiveness (Union Competitiveness Report and Regional Competitiveness Index), there are very few studies on the progress of the basis of scientific and technical knowledge in Europe. Therefore, this paper addresses the measurement of the regional knowledge base—understood as the availability of access to the specialized knowledge resources of a territory, normally embedded in the regional actors—in Europe through a new indicator. This allows the creation of a ranking of the European regions based on their knowledge base profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]