Navarro, M., Gibaja, J.J.
Workings Papers Innova 2009-4. (30 págs)
English // Keywords: innovation.
Description
This paper highlights the role of typologies for the analysis and policy-making related to regional innovation systems (RIS), explains the two main ways to develop RIS typologies (based on case studies and on statistical analysis) and makes an inventory of the existing typologies. Then it shows the main findings of a recent research done by the authors to obtain an innovation typology for the EU-25 regions and a brand new typology for the Spanish regions, as well as the position of Catalonia in those typologies and with regard to the other advanced Spanish regions.
Finally, the paper explores the consequences of elaborating typologies based on statistical analysis with data coming from sources such as Eurostat, which do not provide information about key aspects of a RIS, such as the cooperation among regional agents, the regional governments’ support, the regions’ openness and so on. The main conclusion is that, even though not considering variables related to those key issues, the typologies obtained with available data are quite stable and would not change very much by incorporating variables that act as proxies for the missing aspects of a RIS
