The third EPRC webinar of the 2020-21 Autumn Series was held November 4th, 2020 (12:00 – 13:00 UK) over Zoom. Professor Rune Fitjar presented the paper entitled ‘Searching through the haystack – The relatedness and complexity of prioritised industries’, which he co-authored with Jason Deegan a Tom Broekel.
The study examines which industries regional policy-makers try to develop in regional innovation strategies, focusing in particular on the relatedness and complexity of these industries. It draws on data from the smart specialisation strategies of 106 NUTS 2 regions across Europe. While regions are likely to rely on the dimensions of relatedness and complexity in the selection of priorities, they tend not to choose those economic domains which are both complex and related. Instead, other factors, which are inconsistent with the logic of smart specialisation, exhibit a considerable influence on the selection of priorities. Regions tend to prioritize industries with large existing employment, undermining the aims of the policy to promote diversification into new industries. They also tend to select the same priorities as their neighbours, undermining the idea of a division of labor across regions implied in smart specialization. Overall, findings suggest that smart specialization may be considerably less place-based in practice than it is in theory and that there exists a need for clearer policy logic to inform regions’ priority choices, given the importance of priority selection in smart specialisation strategies and in regional innovation policy more broadly.
Rune Dahl Fitjar is a Professor in Innovation Studies at the UiS Business School, Centre for Innovation Research, and currently the Pro-Rector for Innovation and Society at the University of Stavanger, Norway. He has a PhD in Government from LSE (2007) and works in the intersection of regional studies, innovation studies, economic geography and political science. He coordinates the EU Horizon 2020 Innovative Training Network on the Role of Universities in Innovation and Regional Development (RUNIN).
Professor Fitjar’s presentation can be accessed here, and the recording of the webinar can be viewed on the EPRC’s YouTube page here.
Our next webinar will take place on Wednesday November 11th, when Diana Valero Lopez from the University of Stirling will present on Rural Development and Geographies of Discontent. Future webinars this Autumn will delve on topics of regional policy and development.
If you would like to participate in future seminars, watch out for updates and registrations by following @eprc_eu on Twitter.
