1,720,970 research outputs found
Policy Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurial Strategies, and Institutional Contexts in Interreg Europe
No full textIn their efforts to affect policy change, policy entrepreneurs employ a series of strategies, which have been well documented in the literature. However, little is known regarding the relationship between the type of strategies policy entrepreneurs use and the institutional contexts in which they operate. The Interreg Europe programme aims to promote policy changes and thus offers a space for policy learning and experimentation to policy entrepreneurs. Using a mixed methodology that includes a survey addressed to the 65 Interreg Europe projects in research and innovation during the programming period 2014-2020 and 12 follow-up semi-structured interviews, this article explores the strategies used by policy entrepreneurs in different institutional contexts. The study, rare in the policy entrepreneurship scholarship with its quantitative aspects, highlights the most widely used strategies by policy entrepreneurs in research and innovation policy changes. Findings suggest that the strategy of storytelling is more widely used in high innovator regions than in low innovator regions as well as in Northern European compared to Southern European regions. Moreover, there are significant differences between the use of the strategy of storytelling with the perceived ease of policy entrepreneurs to introduce a policy change
An agent of change against all odds? The case of Ledger in Vierzon, France
Full text linkThe literature in economic geography is increasingly interested in the role of human agency in local and regional development. The understanding of the role of agents of change on path development is especially critical for small- and medium-sized towns (SMSTs), which tend to be less diversified and to have fewer localised capabilities. The town of Vierzon in the Centre-Val-de-Loire region in France is a medium-sized old industrial town in a structural crisis. It is suffering from deindustrialisation, population decline, unemployment and poverty. This article takes a micro-perspective with a case study approach to explore the creation and growth of Ledger – a frontier blockchain start-up that designs, produces and commercialises hardware wallets for cryptocurrencies – against all odds in Vierzon, France. It underlines the role of a Window of Locational Opportunity, agency, chance, the broader institutional context in the location of Ledger in an unlikely place and subsequent unrelated diversification and path creation. It contributes to the debate on the interplay between agency and structure by linking agents of change in SMSTs to the broader institutional context and to the understanding of the emergence of place-based leadership
Agents of Change and Window of Locational Opportunity (WLO) in Crypto Valley in Zug, Switzerland
No full textThe article explores the role of human agency in the construction of the opportunity space during the emergence of a new technology—blockchain— in the town of Zug, Switzerland. Trinity of change agency (TCA)— Schumpeterian innovative entrepreneurs, institutional entrepreneurs, and place- based leadership—were able to seize a brief Window of Locational Opportunity (WLO) and construct the opportunity space to promote path creation in Zug. Branded as Crypto Valley, Zug is a medium-sized town that is home to a thriving blockchain and crypto start-up ecosystem. The case of Crypto Valley contributes to the debate on the interplay between the broader institutional context and with time-specific, region-specific, and agent-specific opportunity spaces during the emergence of a new technology—blockchain. The article also highlights the role of institutional relatedness in the emergence of Crypto Valley in Zug
Theorien und Ansätze der Regionalentwicklung: Eine Anwendung auf die Neue Regionalpolitik (NRP) der Schweiz
Full text linkMit der Neuen Regionalpolitik (NRP) fördern der Bund und die Kantone in der Schweiz die
Berggebiete, die ländlichen Räume und die Grenzregionen. Explizit nennen die gesetzlichen
Rahmenbedingungen den Exportbasis-Ansatz als wissenschaftliche Grundlage für die
regionalpolitische Förderung. Der vorliegende Bericht präsentiert das aktuelle UrsacheWirkungs-Diagramm der NRP. Er gibt darüber hinaus einen Überblick über die
wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen der Regionalentwicklung. Basierend auf einer Vertiefung
dieser Grundlagen wird ein neues theoriegestütztes Ursache-Wirkungs-Diagramm für die
Regionalentwicklung präsentiert. Dieses Modell stellt die Zielgrössen `Nachhaltige
Entwicklung und Regionale Wertschöpfung` ins Zentrum und ergänzt den ExportbasisAnsatz mit den Wirkungskreisläufen Herausforderungsorientierte Innovation & Regionale
Pfadentwicklung, Residentielle Ökonomien und Akteurszentrierte Regionalentwicklung. Die
Empfehlungen fokussieren auf drei Handlungsfelder: Herausforderungsorientierte regionale
Innovationspolitik, Stärkung der Lebensqualität vor Ort und Coaching und Befähigung
unterschiedlicher Akteure. Mittels Massnahmen in diesen drei Feldern kann die nachhaltige
Entwicklung und regionale Wertschöpfung gestärkt werden. Die Studie kommt zum Schluss,
dass die wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen angepasst werden müssen und die NRP stärker auf
die Bewältigung der lokalen/regionalen Herausforderungen ausgerichtet sein sollt
Transformation in Industrial Towns in Slovenia and Switzerland
Full text linkThis report is the result of the first phase of the SNF Project on Industrial Towns titled “Places that don’t matter? Socio-economic transformation of industrial towns in Switzerland and Slovenia”, SNF grant number 192764. The report explores industrial transformation in small- and medium-sized towns (SMSTs) using six case-study towns—namely Biel/Bienne, Glarus and Mendrisio in Switzerland and Idrija, Kočevje, and Trbovlje in Slovenia. It provides a general overview of the institutional contexts of the case-study towns in their respective countries and regional profiles. The report describes the process of industrial transformations in different towns’ contexts
Leveraging national opportunities for regional transformation: multi-scalar system-building and legitimation in a Swiss industrial town
No full textEuropean regions are currently confronted with significant challenges stemming from the green transition and technological disruption. These challenges impose growing pressure on regions to restructure their economies and transition towards more sustainable and innovative modes of production. While the existing literature extensively addresses regional transformation, less attention has been devoted to understanding how actors can effectively leverage opportunities available at different scales to facilitate regional transformation. This study focuses on the ongoing transformation of Biel/Bienne, an industrial town in Switzerland, to illustrate how regional actors have seized two institutional opportunities at the national level based on competitive calls to drive regional transformation. The study emphasizes the importance of multiscalar system-building and legitimation efforts undertaken by regional stakeholders in perceiving and leveraging these national opportunities.
Keywords: windows of opportunity, competitive call, legitimation, system building, Switzerland
PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY: THE CASE OF INNOVATION CENTERS
No full textIn the late 2000s, new spaces—such as co-working, maker spaces, and co-living spaces—have been emerging in the knowledge-based post-industrial cities. The paper investigates the emergence of innovation centers through the use of public-private partnerships. The research methodology is based on a multiple case-study approach in which three cases were selected: Barcelona Growth Center in Barcelona (Spain), District Hall in Boston (USA), and Edney Innovation Center in Chattanooga (USA). Innovation centers, which consist of widely diverse creative and knowledge-based activities located within the same building, participate in the urban regeneration of downtown areas through the promotion of entrepreneurship. The paper finds that the local governments, which adopt public-private partnerships to create innovation centers, are entrepreneurial and are aligning their actions and visions with those of the entrepreneurs they are trying to attract. For the entrepreneurial local governments, innovation centers are anchor spaces incorporated in a broader vision of making “innovation districts
Innovation districts: an investigation of the replication of the 22@ Barcelona's Model in Boston
No full textIn 2000, the city of Barcelona launched 22@ Barcelona, dubbed the innovation district. The city sees the project as a means to accelerate Barcelona’s transition toward the knowledge economy. Other cities around the world have since followed the example of Barcelona, building or planning to build their own innovation districts. Boston began to establish its innovation district in 2010. Cities’ ultimate goal for these initiatives is to become more innovative and thus more competitive. Innovative districts are different from technology parks in that they aim to respond to a new economic paradigm in which economic production flows back to cities. The 22@ Barcelona model involves theoretical designs regarding five layers of innovation: economics, urban planning, productive, innovative, and creative. The comparative approach between 22@ Barcelona and Boston’s Innovation District intends to highlight the similarities and differences between those two innovation districts as well as providing a framework to define innovation districts.Em 2000, a cidade de Barcelona lançou 22@ Barcelona, apelidado Distrito da Inovação. A cidade vê o projeto como um meio para acelerar a transição de Barcelona para a economia do conhecimento. Outras cidades em todo o mundo, desde então, seguiram o exemplo de Barcelona, construindo ou planejando construir seus próprios distritos da inovação. Boston começou a estabelecer seu Distrito da Inovação em 2010. Para as cidades, estas iniciativas as tornam mais inovadoras e, portanto, mais competitivas. Distritos da inovação são diferentes dos parques tecnológicos em que pretendem responder a um novo paradigma econômico em que a produção econômica flui de volta para os centros da cidades. O modelo de 22@ Barcelona envolve projetos relativas a cinco camadas de inovação: a economia, urbanismo, produtividade, inovação e criatividade. A abordagem comparativa entre 22@ Barcelona e o Distrito da Inovação de Boston pretendem destacar as semelhanças e diferenças entre esses dois distritos da inovação, bem como proporcionar um quadro para definir os distritos da inovação
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
- …
