The Design of Regional Innovation Systems

Abstract

A regional innovation system is an analytical approach to better understand the innovation processes taking place inside a region. Since traditional approaches primarily focus on markets, agents and the process of price formation there is a significant disregard of the institutional framework including non-market public institutions and government agencies. Because of the complex interrelations between the heterogeneous agents and the lack of a common target function the approach is still more descriptive than analytic. The aim of the paper is to discuss principles for regional innovation systems. After pointing out the growth stimulating role of knowledge spillovers, examples for successful innovation clusters, the Auditory Valley in Germany and the Zhongguancun Science Park near Beijing are presented. These examples are far beyond the traditional linear R&D framework, and stress the relevance of creating an innovation environment which includes the innovation business infrastructure as well as the transfer of knowledge into production.