Artem Korzhenevych (p), Tao Song

Nick Clifton

This paper empirically studies the determinants of green innovation in China using firm-level patent data. In addition to more deep structural changes argued for in the sustainability transformations literature, green technology development remains an important path to aid the shift of the economies towards sustainability. Improved understanding of conducive and adverse conditions for green innovation is thus important both for research and for decision-making.
Green innovation appears to be particularly important for large developing economies such as China. In 2020, China committed to peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and to achieving carbon neutrality before 2060. This goal requires China to change the economic structure and to develop a green economy with a sustainability strategy. The pursued key mechanism to drive the economic transformation is to launch more sustainable technological investment and use more green technologies.
In this paper, we combine Chinese firm- and city-level data to study innovation drivers. We distinguish between general innovation and green innovation and look for differences between drivers of general innovation and green innovation as well as for policy relevant findings. We focus on the role of different patents-based stocks of knowledge, in particular firm’s own stock of patents, city-level stock of patents and distance-weighted total stock of patents from all locations in China.
In addition to confirming several classical hypotheses for innovation determinants, we find that non-green and other sector knowledge stocks have negative effects on the probability of green innovation, and only specialized knowledge has a positive effect. Furthermore, we study factors that improve absorptive capacity, allowing firms to use this external knowledge. This potentially has implications for innovation policy, implying importance of a more targeted support and networking.

Balázs István Tóth (p)

Artem Korzhenevych

Although the concept of territorial capital and urban transformative capacity have been among the most popular research issues in regional science and urban studies for the last couple of years, being relatively new topics, there are still plenty of open questions that need to be addressed and deserve further research. Notwithstanding, both research issues have evolved significantly over the past two decades. It can be evidenced that territorial capital and urban transformative capacity have important properties, characteristics and functions, as well as both research domains fit well with many current approaches and discourses in academia and policy-making. Although previous work is rich and useful, as well as significant progress has been made on both topics, such efforts are not necessarily enough for capturing the linkages between them. The co-existence of territorial capital and urban transformative capacity in regional science begs a set of questions. For instance, at root, is there any reason for simultaneously studying these concepts? Besides, what exactly are the differences and similarities? What can the two approaches offer each other, and what is the mutual benefit by sharing strong points? Accordingly, the overarching aim of the paper is to reveal some of the linkages between the two research topics and develop a set of mutually reinforcing muscles to compensate each other’s shortcomings, with a particular focus on the interplay between factors and assessment techniques, that are already there, yet unrevealed. An extensive systematic literature review on recent advancements of territorial capital and urban transformative ca-pacity research is carried out to uncover the similarities and differences, as well as point out unique strengths. If we look for ways to combine the strengths of the two research domains, we might be able to create some hybrid approaches and explore mutual concerns in planning and assessment, which may be more profitable to optimise the perceptions of researchers and practitioners about the process and achievements in sustainability transitions, agility and response capability of cities and regions, and urban and regional capacity development. The common strengths suggest a number of ways for practicing planners to begin incorporating the two issues into a comprehensive planning and assessment framework.

Guia Bianchi, Dimitrios Pontikakis, Ramojus Reimeris (p), Solange Mifsud

Balázs István Tóth

Rapid transformations of our socio-technical systems are needed to comply with the ambitious EU policy commitments of reaching climate neutrality by 2050 (UNEP, 2022), including major industrial transitions away from fossil-fuel dependency (EEA, 2019a). Such global transitions in fundamental human support systems such as in energy, transport, food, water and waste are giving rise to local tensions. As witnessed during the earlier stages of the pandemic and more recently with the energy and cost of living crises, these tensions require timely responses. By the time the negative consequences of the transitions begin to be felt it is often late to lessen their impact or to take advantage of new opportunities for the common good.
The necessary transformations do not seem likely with development policy as usual (EEA, 2019b).
Adequate responses require a change in directionality, away from economic policies focused solely on economic growth, and towards the objective of sustainability, understood in a broad sense as long-term societal well-being that combines economic prosperity with social cohesion and a healthy environment (Pontikakis et al, 2022a; 2022b; Schwaag Serger et al., 2023). Striving for truly sustainable development will require a shift in ambition of public policy, from dealing with incremental change, to dealing with transformational change.
Partnerships for Regional Innovation (PRI) provides a framework for the design and implementation of place-based transformative innovation strategies. PRI covers an important gap in current place-based innovation policies, namely their inability to provide positive consistent societal visions for the future, and take tangible steps towards their realisation, including by drawing links between implicated public policies in other portfolios and levels of governance, and by engaging with societal stakeholders who are not active participants in publicly-funded innovation projects.
PRI proposes mission-oriented partnerships that allow variable framings of policy according to the goal (Pontikakis et al., 2022a). They can potentially allow the combination with innovation policy interventions with large physical infrastructures for energy, waste and transport, industrial policy (including skills), fiscal policy and others.
A first edition of the PRI Playbook was published in 2022 (Pontikakis et al., 2022a) defining the conceptual foundation of PRI and providing an inventory of tools in line with them. Co-creation of PRI is now taking place in the context of a Joint Research Centre-Committee of Regions pilot action on PRI, with 74 participating territories. As a result, a more process-oriented and user-centred Playbook is currently under development and due in autumn 2023.