Evaluation

Quick Scan Public Policies to support ‘Hot Spots’ in Europe

The Netherlands’s regional innovation policy is currently under discussion and changing its direction. The recent government Discussion Paper on regional policy in the Netherlands called ‘Peaks in the Delta’ exemplifies a clear shift in the core philosophy: in the new style regional policy, choices will be made for initiatives and good project proposals in economic growth zones, i.e. those regional policy plans with good perspectives for economic development.

Technopolis made a quick scan on how some European countries support their regional hot spots or technology top regions. To do this we have chosen a number of well-known hot spots in Europe and described the underlying factors for their strengths. The study focused on the local, regional and national policy efforts that impact the current strong position of the region. The work is being undertaken on the basis of existing material and within the time span of a month.

We analyzed the success factors of high-technology regions in seven cases: Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, the UK, Finland, and Belgium. The report discusses some theory on technology top regions, it describes the regional case studies and discusses the rol of policies in the emergence or further development of the regions. Finally some policy conclusions are drawn as food for thought for further discussion.

The study shows that, among others, the most important characteristics for a top technology regions are:

  1. the number of (leading) knowledge producing companies with an international network
  2. an excellent infrastructure
  3. structural cooperation and networking between industry itself and between industry and the public research infrastructure
  4. availability of regional and local actors to self-organise
  5. high number of technostarters of high quality

Information
For more information please contact Patries Boekholt - Phone: +31 (0)20 5352244

Downloads
The synthesis report can be downloaded here
The country reports can be downloaded here