Dr. Nikolaos Filippopoulos (p), Prof. Georgios Fotopoulos

Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) have become the dominant framework through which regional development and competitiveness are understood in Europe. Built around the coordination of knowledge actors and the mobilization of innovation inputs, the framework has proven influential in explaining regional differences in innovation inputs, outputs, processes, and knowledge production. Yet a growing body of scholarship questions whether innovation systems, as currently theorized, are equipped to address contemporary grand societal challenges, including environmental sustainability, social cohesion, and inequality. Whether the traditional RIS framework can account for these broader development outcomes remains an open empirical question.
This study revisits RIS by systematically examining its explanatory power across multiple outcome domains. Using Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (FsQCA) on a comprehensive sample of European regions, we first test the conventional RIS framework against both innovation and non-innovation outcomes capturing social and environmental performance. This enables us to assess whether the mechanisms historically associated with innovation performance extend beyond economic competitiveness. Responding to recent calls to reorient innovation systems towards societal problem-solving, we then introduce an augmented configurational framework that incorporates additional systemic dimensions reflecting wider territorial capacities and dynamics. We compare the empirical relevance and configurational logic of the conventional and expanded models across both outcome types, identifying where innovation-centered mechanisms remain sufficient and where complementary conditions become necessary.
By empirically exploring the boundaries of the RIS framework, the study contributes to the ongoing discourse on its future direction. Rather than assuming that innovation systems must be replaced or fundamentally transformed, we examine whether their analytical core travels to new domains of regional performance. The findings offer a more nuanced understanding of how regional systems may function not only as engines of innovation but also as potential vehicles for addressing broader societal challenges, with important implications for the direction of place-based policy in Europe.

Dr. Renato Garcia (p), Dr Veneziano Araujo, Dra Suelene Mascarini, Ms Sarah Ferreira

Developing countries and lagging-behind regions often face persistent shortages of technological capabilities and skills. In this context, local actors increasingly rely on external sources of knowledge to foster innovation and structural change. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by multinational companies (MNCs) is widely recognised as a key channel through which advanced knowledge can be transferred to host economies, potentially generating learning processes and technological spillovers at the regional level. While previous studies have shown that inward FDI can stimulate innovation in both developed and developing countries, less is known about its role in shaping regional patterns of technological diversification and specialisation over time.
This paper examines whether and how inward FDI contributes to technological diversification and the emergence of new regional specialisations in an emerging economy context. Building on the literature on regional capabilities, relatedness, and knowledge recombination, we argue that external knowledge brought by MNCs can foster new technological combinations when integrated with existing regional capabilities, thereby supporting processes of industrial and technological upgrading.
Empirically, we combine data on greenfield investments by multinational companies from the fDi Markets database with regional patent data from the Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI). Our analysis covers 133 Brazilian intermediate regions (comparable to EU NUTS-2) and spans the period 2003–2020. We geolocate inventors’ addresses to construct fractional patent counts and to measure regional technological specialisation and diversification dynamics.
Preliminary results suggest that inward FDI plays a significant role in shaping regional technological trajectories, being positively associated with the emergence of new technological specialisations and diversification patterns. These findings contribute to the literature on FDI, regional innovation systems, and place-based development by highlighting the role of multinational investment as a catalyst for capability building and structural transformation in lagging-behind regions. From a policy perspective, the results underscore the importance of aligning investment attraction strategies with regional innovation and industrial policies to maximise long-term developmental impacts.

Ms Inês Campelo (p)

The EU is investing millions of euros into improving competitiveness. One of the EU’s key priorities for boosting competitiveness is strengthening its innovation. This has translated to a large number of ongoing programs that aim to connect different regions in an attempt to trigger inter-regional collaboration and the EU’s overall innovation performance.
Balland & Boschma (2021) have developed a framework to support the partnership between regions. Their framework is based on relatedness and complexity. Theoretically, it introduces the idea that both relatedness and unrelatedness between the technologies in breakthrough inventions and the regional portfolio of technologies can positively influence the appearance of these breakthroughs, but especially relatedness. This framework arrives at the best possible partners (for example technology complementarities).
This framework has shown a “wicked problem for innovation policy”, as noted by Pinheiro et al. 2025, that the strategy needed to improve the innovativeness of the European knowledge system might disproportionately benefit regions that are already developed and foster disparities. (Pinheiro et al., 2025)
This brings us to the question of the patterns of innovation in the EU.
Firstly, how are the potential collaborations (as found by Balland & Boschma) perpetuating patterns of divergence across regions? What pattern of innovation is created by the potential collaborations (Balland & Boschma, 2021) framework? By using different indicators like GDP and/or institutional readiness we can better assess if the potential collaborations are creating a specific pattern of innovation across EU regions. Secondly, to what extent is the Balland & Boschma framework overlapping with reality? By checking the existing programs across regions (ex. Interreg and Horizon) we assess what is happening in reality.
Answering these two questions will allow for an understanding of not only the EU collaboration patterns, but also where the EU stands in relation to the EU cohesion policy goals.

Dr. Sandra van der Hoek (p)

Entrepreneurial ecosystems research remains disproportionately informed by well-connected regions and tends to under-specify how ecosystem functioning changes when mobility, basic services, and liquidity infrastructures are seasonally disrupted. This limitation is consequential for riverine and island economies, where market access is mediated by transport interfaces, hydrological variability, and institutional arrangements that shape transaction costs and opportunities for local value capture. This paper develops a mechanism-based, municipality-comparative research design to explain how entrepreneurial ecosystems operate under seasonal disruption on Marajó Archipelago at the estuary of the Amazon River.

The study focuses on three municipalities with contrasting accessibility and intermediary density: Soure, Breves, and Afuá. It conceptualises ecosystem functioning as an observable configuration of actors, intermediaries, institutions, market channels, and enabling infrastructures, and evaluates performance through four outcomes: enterprise entry, upgrading attempts, local value retention versus leakage, and resilience to seasonal discontinuities. The explanatory core links ecosystem structure to three mechanisms that are expected to be decisive under riverine constraints: transaction frictions (time and cost burdens in accessing inputs and buyers), liquidity and cashflow constraints (payment delays, savings and credit limits), and coordination capacity (information sharing, collective action, and routine dispute resolution).

Empirically, the project implements a mixed-methods, multi-sited comparative design combining qualitative ecosystem reconstruction with contextual secondary indicators. Approximately 45–60 semi-structured interviews are planned with entrepreneurs and producer households, transport and trading intermediaries, cooperatives and associations, and relevant municipal actors. Interviews reconstruct transactions step by step from production and collection to transport, sale, and payment to identify bottlenecks, delays, and brokerage roles. Focused structured observation in local markets and at key transport interfaces complements interview evidence on coordination practices and constraints. Municipality-level indicators drawn from IBGE contextualise mobility, service reliability, connectivity, and sectoral structure to support transparent cross-site comparison.

The expected contribution is twofold. First, the study advances entrepreneurial ecosystem theory by translating infrastructural scarcity and seasonal disruption into measurable mechanisms and outcome pathways in a peripheral, climate-exposed riverine setting. Second, it offers policy-relevant implications on how intermediary and liquidity infrastructures, including community-based arrangements and public procurement interfaces, can strengthen inclusive upgrading and local value retention while reducing frictions that reproduce exclusion.

Dr. Simone Sasso (p), Dr. Tommaso Ciarli, Dr. Bernardo Caldarola, Dr. Emanuele Pugliese, Dr. Šimon Trlifaj, Mr. Alessio Bumbea

Regional disparities, and particularly the innovation gap between urban and rural regions, remain a central challenge for competitiveness and cohesion in Europe. Policy frameworks such as Smart Specialisation Strategies often rely on conventional indicators—such as patents and R&D expenditure—that primarily capture urban innovation and risk underestimating forms of innovation typical of rural economies (Balland et al., 2020; Eder, 2019). This may lead to a partial view of innovation capabilities outside metropolitan areas.
This paper addresses this gap by analysing the skill portfolios and capabilities that characterise European regions and how they co-evolve with firm dynamics to shape regional development. Building on the idea that regional innovation emerges from coevolutionary dynamics between skills, entrepreneurship and local conditions (Pugliese et al., 2019; Coad et al., 2021), we focus on innovation potential rather than traditional outputs. We identify “hidden innovators” by examining the structure of regional skill demand, entrepreneurial activity and firm dynamics over time.
Empirically, we construct a granular panel dataset for European regions at NUTS3 level by combining multiple data sources. We use millions of Online Job Vacancies (OJV) to measure firms’ skill demand and apply name-entity recognition to match vacancies to firms in Orbis and Dealroom, linking skills to firm dynamics. Regional characteristics are integrated from Eurostat, ARDECO and the JRC Rural Observatory.
To characterise innovation capabilities, we develop skill-based indicators inspired by the economic complexity literature (Neffke and Henning, 2013; Tacchella et al., 2012; Hidalgo and Hausmann, 2009; Aufiero et al., 2024). Using OJV data, we compute measures of skill diversity, coherence and sophistication. We also identify occupations and skills associated with innovative activity through three complementary approaches: (i) linking occupational structures to patent intensity (Dotzel and Wojan, 2022); (ii) analysing skill co-occurrence within innovative firms; and (iii) applying transformer-based NLP models to detect emerging digital technologies in job-ad texts. We then assess how these capability measures relate to firm entry, survival and broader industrial dynamics.
Preliminary results highlight strong spatial heterogeneity and the importance of geographic proximity, with neighbouring regions displaying more similar skill structures. Coherent skill portfolios are positively associated with startup creation in rural and intermediate regions, whereas fragmented skill structures correlate negatively with entrepreneurship across territorial types.
Overall, the paper proposes a new geography of innovation potential in Europe, revealing rural regions with latent capabilities that remain invisible in traditional metrics and offering an empirical basis for place-based innovation policies.