Patricia Jardim da Palma, Miguel Pereira Lopes (p)

Patricia Mello

The Portuguese Network of Municipalities for Quality of Life

Quality of life is a key goal in municipality governance (De Guimarães et al., 2020). Local governance models evolved to transcend the hierarchical/heterarchical dichotomy into a network-based character. The goal of this proposal is to present the case of the governance model of the Portuguese Network of Municipalities for Quality of Life, led by INTEC - Behavioral Technology Institute. A not-for-profit association, INTEC has been measuring Quality of Life (QoL) in Portuguese municipalities since 2008. All Over these years, INTEC has measured QoL and/or QoL good practices and policies in over 50 Portuguese municipalities and collected over 12500 individual questionnaires. INTEC's approach is based on both the methodologies of EUROFOUND and OECD, including subjective citizen evaluations (questionnaire interviews) as well as objective indicators (living conditions). In other words, we measure both quality of life and living conditions (cf. D’Agostini & Fantini, 2008).
As for 2023 forward INTEC has settled the The Portuguese Network of Municipalities for Quality of Life that currently includes the following 10 municipalities: Arronches, Cadaval, Condeixa, Famalicão, Lagoa, Pombal, Trofa, Velas, Vila Nova de Gaia e Vila Verde. These municipalities were willing to quantitatively measure the quality of life and living conditions of their citizens. In addition, this “Network” also promoted the share of best practices concerning QoL improvement. In the presentation, we will present the governance characteristics of this network and discuss limitations and opportunities.

References
D’Agostini, L. R., & Fantini, A. C. (2008). Quality of life and quality of living conditions in rural areas: distinctively perceived and quantitatively distinguished. Social Indicators Research, 89, 487-499.
De Guimarães, J. C. F., Severo, E. A., Júnior, L. A. F., Da Costa, W. P. L. B., & Salmoria, F. T. (2020). Governance and quality of life in smart cities: Towards sustainable development goals. Journal of Cleaner Production, 253, 119926.

Maurício Serra, Patricia Mello (p), Maurício Serra

Miguel Pereira Lopes

The current process of economic development, increasingly based on production networks, products of high economic complexity, industrial modernization, and heavy investments in innovation and infrastructure, has spread across territories in a very heterogeneous way. This implies a considerable challenge for regions, which need to draw up tailored public policies in order to create, improve and retain values locally. Within this context, technology parks assume strategic importance inasmuch as they not only stimulate the innovation process, but also boost the economies of the regions in which they are located.
This logic is present in both developed and developing countries. However, the latter conceived technology parks as a tool for the process of economic catching up and, at the same time, to catalyse connections in the current increasingly complex and fragmented global economy. As a consequence, subnational states designed their technology park policies with the clear purpose of pushing their economies and, in this way, contributing to the country's development. However, after just over a decade of existence, uncertainties hover over the real contribution of technology parks to the regions where they operate. These uncertainties arise not only from an apparent divorce between the framework and institutional design of regional policies and the logic of the technology park policy model, which creates serious obstacles for the parks to generate the hoped-for results, but also from the lack of academic studies that investigate the characteristics of public policies for technology parks.
In order to fill these gaps in the existing literature, this paper aims to build a logical model to evaluate the performance of technology parks as a public policy aimed at promoting regional development. After an in-depth and broad literature review analysing what science has shown about performance indicators in technology parks, a meta-analysis consistent with this review was carried out. Then the Atlas TI software was used for coding and content analysis, which allowed a constructive theoretical dialogue and, at the same time, enabled the final construction of a logical evaluative model of technology parks. The paper points out that there are seven dimensions in which technology parks would promote: global, economic, innovative, entrepreneurial culture, academic, urban and social. Another significant contribution of the paper is the fact that it provides a set of key performance indicators for technology parks in these seven dimensions.

Chiara F. Del Bo (p)

Patricia Mello

Is the unitary or decentralized nature of a country related to the reception and use of supranational funds at the urban level? Using the urban energy and environmental European Funds for regional policy within the Smart Cities and Community (SSC) initiative as a case study, this work aims to explore the issue of multilevel government funds and the interplay with decentralization. Different indicators are considered to measure decentralization, with the aim of capturing the multifaceted nature of this phenomenon, from formal federalism to varying degrees of subnational autonomy and authority. The quality of regional institutions is used as a moderator variable, to account for differences in local administrative capacity.

Keywords: decentralization; regional autonomy; supranational funds; urban policies

Patrícia Alencar Silva Mello (p), Maurício Aguiar Serra, Suelene Mascarini

Chiara F. Del Bo

Economic literature has emphasised that innovation is the engine of economic development and, therefore, the source of prosperity for countries and regions. In a world increasingly marked by intense competitiveness and economic complexity, innovation has become a key factor in boosting national and regional development. It is within this logic that technology parks are inserted, insofar as they are perceived as valuable instruments to promote the growth and economic development of countries and, mainly, the regions in which they are located.
Since their emergence in the early 1950s in the USA, technology parks, due to their potential, have gained international reputation, spread throughout the world and gone through different cycles, which are linked to their alignment with the changes occurring in the world economy. The point is that technology parks are considered creative, interactive and dynamic innovation environments. As they are conducive both to the transformation of the productive structure and to the increase in the economic complexity of the regions in which they operate, the vast literature on technology parks has basically focused its attention on economic subject. In short, this literature has neglected a critical topic: the social impacts produced by innovation environments in their regions.
By analysing the link between innovation environments and improvements in public security, using the São José dos Campos technology park as a case study, this paper contributes not only to filling a gap in the literature, but also to creating a research agenda on social impacts that such innovation environments can generate in their regions.
The São José dos Campos technology park is based in the municipality of the same name, which has an innovative culture driven by the aerospace industry and is located in the interior of São Paulo, a state that stands out compared to others for its economic dynamism. The key point to be highlighted is that well-designed municipal policies for public security were responsible for the creation of the Security and Intelligence Centre and its location in the park.
An econometric analysis was carried out with data provided by the Centre, which was complemented by interviews with key people, whose objective was to better understand the interaction between the innovation environment and the Centre itself. The paper shows that this partnership was responsible for the sharp drop in car theft, robbery and homicide rates from 2016 to 2022.