Special session at the 53rd ERSA Congress
Regional Integration: Europe, the Mediterranean and the World Economy Palermo, Italy, 27-31 August 2013
New tools for regional innovation policy
There is no doubt – innovation is necessary to achieve and sustain the competitiveness of regions. Regional innovation systems are considered as an effective target as well as a tool for innovation policy. Research activities in regions are increasingly shaped by a globalized environment and multi-level governance. Due to the growing complexity of innovation systems, public policy faces severe challenges in accounting for the impact of its interventions. Legitimation of policy interventions more and more relies on ex-ante impact assessment of foreseen measures and new methods of policy analysis are required. Particularly, systemic effects are not sufficiently captured with standard evaluation methods. New tools and models, such as simulation and network analysis, are able to provide important insights ex-ante and allow the assessment of potential intended – and unintended – effects of concrete policy instruments. In order to ensure credibility of model results, empirical foundation is a core issue.
The aim of this Special session is to reflect the most recent advancements regarding such tools for policy advice. It allows researchers to share their experience in developing models and present their way of tackling specific issues, such as those related to the empirical calibration and validation of tools. We invite contributions referring to these challenges, proposing approaches and applications for the support of regional innovation policy. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
 Regional innovation policy
 Innovation economics
 Policy-oriented agent-based modelling
 Network analysis
 Ex-ante evaluation
Session organizers
Manuela Korber and Manfred Paier
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Foresight & Policy Development Department
Contact: manuela.korber@ait.ac.at