Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science

Research on Europeanization and domestic change has moved south-eastwards and was provided with another real-world experiment when it has meet with Turkey. This paper explores to what extent Europeanization approaches travel to Turkey, which does have a ...

The development and implementation of regional development policies comprising information and communication technologies (ICT) is a complex process. ICTs play a crucial role in regional development as a horizontally enabling tool, such as high-speed internet infrastructures. At the same time, some regions have an interest in supporting the vertical development of ICT industries and emerging regional specialisations like eTourism. Due to the technical nature and the socio-culturally embeddedness of ICT, policy processes have to include technical, socio-economic and policy capabilities in order to work with ICT. Using participatory methods, policy makers can encourage transfer of knowledge amongst regions to address this complex reality. This policy brief presents the findings from three learning workshops where Andalusia (ES), Lodz (PL), Lombardy (IT), Malopolska (PL), Noordvleugel (NL) and Scotland (UK) have presented their work on ICT strategies and digital growth. The regions' individual experience is distilled into four general observations: i) the importance of an adequate infrastructure as a crucial pre-condition for the development of the digital economy; ii) the significance of involving stakeholder groups in ICT policy development and in governance structures and processes, since every actor is a potential agent of change; iii) the need for inter-regional collaboration both for learning and co-development of policies; and iv) the need for a broad array of policies tailored to the specific needs of each region.

Regional benchmarking can be of great help in making strategic decisions within the process of the design and implementation of regional Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3). It can help positioning a region with respect to other regions in Europe and facilitate policy learning based on the transfer of good practices across borders. One of the most basic conditions required for drawing lessons from regional benchmarking is to compare homogeneous regions and learn from equivalents. This paper aims to provide a new methodology for the identification of homogeneous regions for regional benchmarking; identifying groups of homogeneous regions using variables that are similar in nature; focusing solely on structural conditions, thereby overcoming the flaws produced by mixing variables of a different nature (comparing structural indicators with performance and/or behavioural indicators).

Science and technology parks (STPs) are very common instruments used by regional and national authorities for regional development. Their main objective is to foster science-based growth poles to stimulate economic diversification away from declining industries. Today, STPs are present in many European regions. They concentrate a wide range of innovative companies and research organisations, and as a consequence the overall knowledge intensity of these places is very high. STPs are thus likely to include seeds for the domains of knowledge-intensive specialisation, on which regions can rely to increase their competitiveness. This is why STPs seem well placed to play a key role in innovation strategies for smart specialisation (S3). We argue that the diversity of STP models by definition means that their contribution to smart specialisation is very likely to depend on the specific context. Three key roles for STPs in the design and implementation of smart specialisation strategies are...