Network policies to strengthen the regional innovation system. The Case of Innovation Poles in Tuscany 2011-2014 (2015)

Regional Studies Association Annual Conference 2015 – Global Growth Agendas: Regions, Institutions and Sustainability, Piacenza, 25 May 2015.

Network policies to strengthen the regional innovation system. The Case of Innovation Poles in Tuscany 2011-2014

Margherita Russo, Dipartimento di Economia Marco Biagi, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, margherita.russo@unimore.it
Annalisa Caloffi, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Aziendali “Marco Fanno”, Università di Padova, annalisa.caloffi@unipd.it
Federica Rossi, School of Business, Economics and Informatics, Birkbeck College, University of London, f.rossi@bbk.ac.uk
Valentina Fiordelmondo, Dipartimento di Economia Marco Biagi, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, valentina.fiordelmondo@unimore.it
Stefano Ghinoi, Dipartimento di Economia Marco Biagi, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, stefano.ghinoi@unimore.it

Abstract

In the last fifteen years, network innovation policies have been increasingly adopted as levers to enhance regional systems of innovation. The main objective of this paper is to model the outcome of a regional policy which aimed to strengthen the regional innovation system through network policies. As a first phase of a counterfactual analysis, in this paper we present the case of the Tuscany Region innovation policy in the period 2011-2014, when the Region promoted ‘innovation poles’ and “technological districts”. In particular, the 12 poles of innovation funded by the Tuscany Region policy had to support the demand for “qualified services”, helping businesses to be aware of their needs and their critical issues and to network them with suppliers (university, research centers, KIBs) able to solve them. Starting from the assumption that the ultimate goal of those policies is to support innovation activities of the manufacturing and services companies of the region, the research questions we set for modeling that network policy were:

  • There is a significant clustering of the 12 poles on the basis of the common characteristics, such as the network configuration, the channels they adopted in promoting memberships, the production sector, KET’s?
  • Which are the type of agents and their relative importance in terms of intermediation in the network of networks across the poles?
  • What are the parameters by which to assess the many different activities of the twelve poles? The Region has provided a set of well-defined variables for the evaluation of the performance, are they effective, or worth to consider other metrics?
  • To which extent do innovation poles have changed the networks of relationships between the companies members of the poles and between those companies and the research system (public and private)? Did they support the ability of those companies to create the conditions, relationships and skills necessary to an effective improvement of the competitiveness of Tuscan innovation and knowledge economy?
  • To which extent the funds granted to support the poles’ activities have been effective for the actual improvement of the system of innovation in Tuscany?
  • What are the key factors on which the Region must act to improve the regional innovation policy?

To answer these questions, in this paper we present the results of a network analysis based on an original database created with information on the 4000 companies and more than 100 among university centers, laboratories and KIBS involved in the 12 innovation poles, drawn by the official monitoring documents (submitted twice a year to the regional administration), combined with information obtained from 23 interviews with representatives of the poles and with business associations.

With regard to the case of the Tuscany innovation policy, this paper provides a framework to analyze (a) the multidimensional network among the many types of agents involved (poles’ managers, member companies, business incubators, service centers and research centers); (b) the activities of the poles and the supply of qualified services by the poles, as well as (c) the performance indicators.

In the last part of the paper, the results of our empirical analysis are confronted with the main strands of the literature on innovation networks and the issues for the counterfactual analysis are laid down.