Levelling-up regional innovation: a configurational study

Roel Rutten

European Planning Studies, 2025, vol. 33, issue 8, 1375-1391

Abstract: What explains the difference between innovative and not-innovative regions? Capitalizing on the fact that QCA (Qualitative Comparative Analysis) is a threshold method, this study investigates different configurations of conditions explaining why regions are innovative versus almost innovative. The differences suggest what must ‘happen’ in almost-innovative regions to level-up to innovative regions. The QCA-study uses two different outcomes: new product development (a less complicated kind of innovation) and patent application (a more complicated innovation). It includes five explanatory conditions, capturing idea generation and knowledge production, and is performed on EU regions. Findings suggest a diversity of innovation where multiple configurations explain less sophisticated innovation competencies, but few explain more sophisticated innovation competences. Levelling-up thus requires regions to develop new, different competences rather than doing the same thing better. The seven innovation competences that this study identifies capture the diversity of innovation. These competences are the starting point for a discussion on levelling-up. Encouraging regional innovation is about matching these competences to a region’s economic possibilities, acknowledging that few regions will successfully develop all innovation competences.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2025.2544963 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:33:y:2025:i:8:p:1375-1391

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CEPS20

DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2025.2544963

Access Statistics for this article

European Planning Studies is currently edited by Philip Cooke and Louis Albrechts

More articles in European Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().