Place-based multi-system innovation: the case of the twin transition technologies in European regions

Oscar Romero Goyenche, Deyu Li and Ron Boschma

No 2624, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: There is increasing interest in studying how multi-system innovation (MSI) emerge across regions. Understanding it requires attention to the co-evolutionary dynamics among systems and to their spatial co-location. Integrating insights from the Sustainability Transition and Evolutionary Economic Geography literatures, a framework is proposed to study the critical emergence of innovation at the intersection of digital and green technologies, as outlined in the European twin transition agenda. Despite numerous studies, it remains unclear how specific components and capabilities recombine within regions to support the emergence of twin technologies. This framework is explored empirically in a study of 271 European NUTS-2 regions, using a random forest classification model to identify which configurations of regional technological trajectories most strongly support the emergence of twin technologies during the period 2000-2021. Using patent data, the results show that digital and green follow different trajectories into twin regional specialisation. Digital technologies contribute primarily through relatedness among themselves, while green technologies contribute when co-located with digital ones, with Artificial Intelligence being the most consistent interaction. These findings inform place-based regional innovation strategies by showing that the emergence of twin technologies depends not only on the accumulation of digital and green knowledge bases, but also on the specific configurations through which regions enter the twin technological space.

Keywords: Multi-system innovation; Cross-system interaction; green transition; digital transition; twin transition; Evolutionary Economic Geography. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-10, Revised 2026-10
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg2624.pdf Version October 2026 (application/pdf)

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:egu:wpaper:2624

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).