Benchmarking Regional Innovation: A Comparison of Bavaria, Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland
1. Introduction
Interest in the effects of location on firms’ innovation activity is longstanding. Writing
in 1992, for example, Alfred Kleinknecht and Tom Poot asked ‘Do Regions Matter
for R&D?’ and examined whether firms’ location in the Netherlands shaped the extent
or nature of their R&D investments. While they found no evidence that firms in urban
agglomerations undertook more R&D than similar companies in rural areas, they did
find that firms in rural areas placed more emphasis on process related R&D
(Kleinknecht and Poot, 1992, pp. 230-231). Subsequent empirical studies provide
more conflicting evidence about the importance of location as an influence on firms’
innovation activity1. Recent conceptual developments, particularly associated with the
literature on endogenous growth driven by technological change, have, however,
prompted a different question, namely ‘Does R&D matter for regions?’ In other words
to what extent can R&D, or more generally technological development, provide a
basis for regional economic development (e.g. Frenkel, 1997)? Interest in the
potential for technology-led, regional development strategies has also been stimulated
by the example of successful regions (e.g. Heidenreich and Krauss, 1998; Yun, 1998),
and the search by regional governments for more effective alternatives to traditional
regional policy (e.g. Hassink, 1993). In particular, within the EU the policy debate has
focussed on initiatives designed to stimulate regional technological development,
notably through the Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS), Regional Technology
Partnership (RTP) and Regional Innovation and Technology Transfer Strategies
(RITTS) programmes. Evaluation of these programmes has been extensive but has
typically been limited to the operational aspects of the projects and their effects on
regional policy agendas (e.g. ECOTEC, 1999). One underdeveloped aspect of the
monitoring or evaluation of such initiatives, and indeed the success or otherwise of
1 Other subsequent studies addressing similar issues also provide conflicting evidence.
Studies by Shefer and Frenkel (1998) on Northern Israel, Brouwer and Kleinknecht
(1996) on the Netherlands, Harris and Trainor (1995) on Northern Ireland and
McCartney and Teague (1997) on the Republic of Ireland have suggested the potential
importance of agglomeration economies linked to urban or metropolitan locations.
Devlaar and Nijkamp (1989, 1992) for the Netherlands, Koschatzky et al. (1998) for
Germany and Roper (1999) for Ireland provide contradictory evidence.