25 April 2016
Susana Franco, Orkestra researcher, participated in April in the annual conference of the Regional Studies Association in Graz, Austria, an event attended by over 350 international experts in different areas in regional and urban issues. Susana presented a paper “Public Policies and Cluster Life Cycles: Insights from the Basque Country Experience” written in collaboration with Aitzibr Elola, a fellow Orkestra researcher; Jesús Mari Valdaliso, Professor of Economic History at the UPV/EHU; and Santiago López, Professor at the University of Salamanca.
This research forms a part of the VRI project, financed by the Norwegian government, on economic transformation in different regions, which Orkestra is developing along with various Norwegian universities and CIRCLE, a Swedish research institute. The objective is to understand the role played by innovation policies in processes of economic regeneration. Furthermore, a fundamental aspect of the work has been the research developed by the Institute, in collaboration with the Basque Public University (UPV/EHU) and the University of Salamanca, regarding the historical origin of clusters in the Basque Country.
The work concludes that these policies have had only an indirect influence on clusters during their life cycle. One of the lessons to be drawn is the need to take into account the history and the context when applying policies. Namely given that policies which were appropriate in the past may cease to be relevant in a different economic context. It also emphasizes that policies should be adapted to the each cluster´s current life cycle. This means that clusters at an incipient stage require different approaches than those, having reached a phase of maturity or of possible decline.
The work presented will be published in the academic journal “European Planning Studies”, in a special edition on “Path Dependency and Regional Renewal”.
During the stay in Austria, Susana Franco and Anastasiia Konstantynova, researchers at the Institute, visited the headquarters of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), located in Vienna. The aim was to make known Orkestra’s work to the Department of Trade, Investment and Innovation; and to explain different areas of research and projects in which the Institute is involved in order to identify potential areas of collaboration between the two entities. To this end a meeting was held, where the Orkestra researchers presented the Institute’s work to around 20 members of the Department. This was followed by various bilateral meetings addressing in further detail certain projects of common interest.
