other regional supports for innovation etc., has been the development of external
innovation benchmarks. Our focus here is therefore on the development of a set of
survey-based regional innovation benchmarks. These are applied using information
from company surveys conducted over the last decade to compare innovation activity
in the EU ‘core’ region of Bavaria and the more peripheral areas of Northern Ireland
and the Republic of Ireland. Key questions relate to the objectives of firms’
innovation activities, measures of innovation capability and innovation activity, and
whether, given the alternative regional strategies adopted, there is any evidence of
convergence.
In a UK context, the timing of these comparisons is opportune given the increasing
level of regional autonomy resulting from the creation of the Regional Development
Agencies (RDAs) in England (Roberts, 2000), and the devolution of control of
economic development policy to the Scottish parliament and assemblies in Northern
Ireland and Wales (Ashcroft, 1998; Birnie and Hitchens, 1998). Indeed, David North
recently highlighted the role of innovation promotion in regional economic strategies
of the RDAs; “the ‘sine qua non’ of regional economic development (North, 2000, p.
10)2. Similar sentiments are echoed in Northern Ireland’s ‘Strategy 2010’ which
stresses the imperative for Northern Ireland to become ‘an innovative society
receptive to the creation, assimilation and exploitation of new ideas’. (DETI, 1999, p.
159).
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 outlines the main
conceptual foundations focussing on the evolutionary nature of innovation and the
importance of the institutional context (or Regional Innovation System) within which
firms innovate. Section 3 provides an overview of the economic, policy and
institutional environment of the study regions over the last decade, and section 4 and
describes the innovation data. Sections 5, 6 and 7 present the main empirical results
focussing on the aims of firms’ innovative activities, the resource base for innovation
(both within and around each plant) and the level of innovation outputs respectively.
2 North (2000), p. 10, for example, quotes from the Regional Economic Strategy of the East Midlands
Development Agency their aspiration to ‘develop a strong culture of enterprise and innovation, putting
the region at the leading edge in Europe in our exploitation of research, recognised for our spirit of
innovation.