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Benchmarked Regional Innovation in the light of the ‘Innovation Union’ of the Europe 2020 Agenda: A comparative time series analysis on the innovation performance of Nordrhein-Westfalen and its top 31 European reference regions over the last six years (2007-2013)

Zoll, M. (2016) Benchmarked Regional Innovation in the light of the ‘Innovation Union’ of the Europe 2020 Agenda: A comparative time series analysis on the innovation performance of Nordrhein-Westfalen and its top 31 European reference regions over the last six years (2007-2013).

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Abstract:Back in 1995 the European Commission acknowledged with its widely influential ‘Green Paper on Innovation’ that innovation is one of the major ‘engines’ behind economic growth of the European Union. As such, the in 2010 adopted research and innovation strategy Europe 2020 aims at the advancement of its economy by centring around three priorities: innovation, sustainability and social cohesion. Against this background, EU-wide strategies have been implemented to promote “smart,sustainable and inclusive growth” throughout the EU. Against this backgrounds, this research project benchmarked the regional innovation performance of the German “Bundesland” Nordrhein- Westfalen against its top 31 European reference regions in the light of the ‘Innovation Union’—one of the major flagship initiatives of the Europe 2020 Agenda—by observing the innovation performance throughout the years 2007-2013. Through the collection of panel data the exercise was able to capture the influence of the since 2009 on-going economic crises and its constraints on the innovation performance of European regions. The performed regional benchmarking analysis thereby revealed the the EU‘s ‘policy triad’—“smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”—has not yet fully reached all European regions, including Nordrhein-Westfalen. The region can be classified as an ‘innovation follower’ as it is performing exceedingly well in terms of ‘Intellectual Assets’ and ‘Economics Effects’ by being close to the top, however, it lacks behind in terms of the ‘Human Resources’ and the ‘Firm Investment’ dimensions. Hence more effort is required by the regional innovation (policy) actors in order to close gap and or even simply come close to the set benchmark targets for those indicators.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:70 social sciences in general, 74 (human) geography, cartography, town and country planning, demography, 83 economics, 85 business administration, organizational science, 88 social and public administration, 89 political science
Programme:European Studies MSc (69303)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/69008
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