Regional benchmarking in the smart specialisation process: Identification of reference regions based on structural similarity

Mikel Navarro, Juan José Gibaja (), Susana Franco (), Asier Murciego (), Carlo Gianelle, Alexander Kleibrink and Fatime Barbara Hegyi ()
Additional contact information
Juan José Gibaja: University of Deusto
Susana Franco: Orkestra University of Deusto
Asier Murciego: Orkestra University of Deusto

No JRC89819, JRC Research Reports from Joint Research Centre

Abstract: One of the most basic conditions required for drawing lessons from regional benchmarking is to compare homogeneous regions and learn from equivalents. This condition is not met when regions for comparison are chosen based on their high performance, overlooking their regional context or structural conditions. This paper aims to provide a new methodology for the identification of homogeneous regions for regional benchmarking; identifying groups of homogeneous regions using variables that are similar in nature; focusing solely on structural conditions, thereby overcoming the flaws produced by mixing variables of a different nature (comparing structural indicators with performance and / or behavioural indicators). Thus, regional benchmarking can be of great help in making strategic decisions within the process of the design and implementation of regional Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), taking into account the relative position of the region to other regions in Europe. Following the RIS3 approach of looking beyond the regional administrative boundaries, benchmarking based on structural similarity enables the region to identify its competitive advantages through systematic comparisons with other regions or to map the national and international context in search of examples to learn from, or to mark a difference with.

Keywords: European cohesion policy; Structural Funds; smart specialisation; regional benchmarking; structural similarity; policy learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 R12 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-geo, nep-sbm and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/reports ... -based-structural_en

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:ipt:iptwpa:jrc89819

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in JRC Research Reports from Joint Research Centre Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Publication Officer ().