Title: Promoting communities of innovation: Do industrial policies matter?

Authors: Gianluca Elia; Claudio Petti; Angela Sarcina

Addresses: Dept. of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Via per Monteroni s.n., Ecotekne (Pal. IBIL), 73100 Lecce – Italy ' Dept. of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Via per Monteroni s.n., Ecotekne (Pal. IBIL), 73100 Lecce – Italy ' Dept. of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Via per Monteroni s.n., Ecotekne (Pal. IBIL), 73100 Lecce – Italy

Abstract: Communities of innovation (CoI) was introduced at organisational level to pursue collaboratively innovation activities. By extending this concept at territorial level, they may become government's tools to undertake innovative projects for local development. This work investigates whether and, if so, to what extent local governments support the development of CoI. We focused our attention on two different institutional settings, one in Italy and one in China. We performed a quantitative and qualitative investigation, relying on official data and web sources. With the first, we developed a measure to synthesise the intensity in promoting CoI; with the second, we highlighted the main programs' characteristics and objectives supporting CoI. Results show that in both settings, local governments make significant policy efforts in promoting CoI, focusing on similar objectives and relying on similar tools. This highlights the engagement of governments and the relevance of their industrial policies to support the development of CoI.

Keywords: collaboration; communities of innovation; knowledge-based development; industrial policies; triple helix; government support; Italy; China.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKBD.2016.078522

International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 2016 Vol.7 No.3, pp.207 - 224

Received: 03 Dec 2015
Accepted: 05 Feb 2016

Published online: 22 Aug 2016 *

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