ESR 3

Project: European and national regional and innovation policies reproducing peripheries?

ESR 3 : Sebastian Schulz (Host: UT)

Description: The promotion of innovation features distinctly on the European regional policy agenda and in its discourse as a means for regional development and, through that, a way to balance socio-economic disparities by inducing growth. However, there is evidence that regional innovation policies have a strong bias towards larger firms in core regions and focus mainly on R&D support, and are therefore not addressing e.g. low-tech industries in non-metropolitan and peripheral regions. The project’s aim is to examine the objectives of regional innovation policy on EU and national level and which innovation-related activities actually receive funding. More specifically, it reviews who and where the recipients of regional innovation policy are and, with regard to regional polarisation, it analyses whether core and peripheral regions both benefit equally from regional innovation policy.