Miren Larrea

The Role of Interactive Learning to Close the “Innovation Gap” in SME-Based Local Economies: A Furniture Cluster in the Basque Country and its Key Policy Implications

This paper identifies an “innovation gap” in the (in)efficient relation between innovation structures and production systems in SME-based economies and, by elucidating an implicit aspect of key theoretical contributions from Lundvall and Cooke, among others, sets the basis for a policy focus that may help reducing those margins of inefficiency. In this work, we identify three interdependent drivers of innovation: the “critical mass” of firms in a specific geographical location; the formation of “organizations” devoted to the creation and diffusion of knowledge and innovations; the ignition of “learning processes” within the production system that help catalyse significant innovations within the local economy. We suggest that the importance of processes of codified knowledge flows needs to be complemented by interactive flows of tacit knowledge that help overcoming the “innovation gap” that often exists between firms and knowledge institutions. Since this gap represents the inefficiency of the innovation structures, we suggest that it should be targeted by policy-makers and business associations as a central issue for innovation promotion through actions that intensify interactions and learning processes through bottom-up initiatives. These elements are analysed in a furniture cluster in the Basque Country and are highlighted on the basis of successful micro-territorial experiences.

Learning from the Local: Governance of Networks for Innovation in the Basque Country

As new concepts of innovation emphasizing interaction between agents have gained influence, regions have become acknowledged as relevant units for policy-making. This paper explores questions around multi-level governance with regards the promotion of local and regional networking initiatives designed to facilitate innovation. The specific case studied is that of the Basque Country region in Spain. As part of a response to the innovation challenge an initiative called Innobasque was launched in 2007 as a region-wide framework through which to stimulate cooperation networks for innovation. While Innobasque is in its infancy, this paper seeks to draw lessons for the development of such projects from analysis of a smaller-scale, local case (Ezagutza Gunea) that has demonstrated considerable success. While the territorial coverage, goals and institutions implied are different in each case, the necessary rationalization of efforts made at different institutional levels makes it interesting to “learn from the local” in trying to understand complementarities and possible overlaps. We conclude that effective coordination of knowledge flows rooted in networks at different spatial scales and of different configurations (“bottom-up” and “top-down”) is a key challenge for regional policy-makers and an important area for future research.

The policy process: clusters versus spatial networks in the Basque Country

Clusters and Globalisation brings together scholars with different perspectives and theoretical groundings, and from different disciplines, to consider conceptual arguments and case study material. In doing so the volume identifies key characteristics and requirements of the forms of cluster that are especially significant for the attainment of economic success in a globalising world.

Moving context from the background to the forefront of policy learning: Reflections on a case in Gipuzkoa, Basque Country:

The article focuses on policy learning processes with the aim of sharing knowledge about how policy learning happens. In doing this, it considers conflict as a natural process in policy learning and proposes action research as a possible strategy to address it. By reflecting on a long-term action research process in the province of Gipuzkoa (Basque Country, Spain), the article proposes a change of focus in assessing the role of context. If we assume that policy learning is oriented towards changing the context, then context plays a more complex and important role than it is usually given in theory. At the core of this argument is the understanding that the cognitive frameworks of policy makers and researchers are also part of context and, when changing the context, participants in policy learning are involved in a change process which alters the very same cognitive frameworks that conditioned the initiation of policy learning.

Overcoming policy making problems in smart specialization strategies: engaging subregional governments

ABSTRACT Since the concept of Smart Specialization was launched, an effort has been made to clarify and establish criteria for its implementation. Part of the difficulties in implementing Research and Innovation Smart Specialization Strategies (RIS3) is their emphasis on bottom-up approaches, which are required because there are public and private stakeholders that are better positioned than governments to find the domains in which the region is likely to excel. Regions must shift towards a new generation of industrial policy and the difficulties for advancing in this direction are already visible. Designing and implementing a smart specialisation strategy at regional level: Some open questions. The centrality of entrepreneurial discovery in building and implementing a smart specialisation strategy. Efforts to implement smart specialization in practice – leading unlike horses to the water. The paper is based on four cases related to governance and learning for smart specialization in the Basque Country (Spain) and presents three main lessons learnt. The first has to do with connections between regional and sub-regional governments in order to construct networks of territorial actors that can act as the senses of governments in the territory. The second is about the challenge of handling complexity and conflict and the third is about the integration of social researchers in RIS3 processes.

Academia and Public Policy: Towards the co-generation of knowledge and learning processes

Building from the context of ongoing debates around the changing roles of universities in society, this paper contributes to analysis of academia-society interface in two important respects. First, the paper considers the under-researched subset of relations that exist between academia and public policy. It is argued that academia-policy relations bear similarities to academia-market relations; like imperfect markets, policy environments tend to be characterised by concentrations of power. Thus similar concerns to those evident in debates around the commercialisation of university activity are relevant. Second, the paper explores the issue of balance in the role of the academic with regards public policy though an auto-reflective case analysis of an emerging experience in the Basque Country region of Spain. An aim is to reflect on the very fine (and frequently controversial) line between policy-oriented academic research and policy consultancy. The analysis highlights some of the benefits and issues with integrating action research principles into research projects, and suggests the significance of co-generation of knowledge and learning processes between academics and policy-makers. In turn this has specific implications for the time-horizon of relationships (long- rather than short-term) and for doctoral training (in research methodologies appropriate for such processes).

Access of Small Firms to Knowledge Networks as a Determinant of Local Economic Development

This insightful book shows how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from some of the traditionally less dynamic peripheral economies of the ‘old’ EU – namely Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain – have responded to the twin challenges of globalisation and industrial restructuring. Through a series of unique case studies the contributing authors discuss how these economies, and in particular the SME sector, can be transformed.

Regional Innovation System as a Framework for the Co-generation of Policy: An Action Research Approach

Policy makers in regional development often relate their policies to frameworks proposed by researchers in the field. Of these frameworks, the regional innovation system (RIS) has been one of the most influential. This chapter focuses on the difficulties that arise when policy makers try to enact the RIS and other related frameworks and proposes action research—and, more specifically, a co-generative approach—to help face these challenges. The starting point for this proposal is an analysis of the differences and similarities between the observer and co-generative research approaches. Most research in this field has been developed with researchers positioned as outside observers, and co-generation could help to generate complementary knowledge. In order to explore this complementarity, the chapter presents the co-generative framework for territorial development, which is proposed as a response to the challenges of RIS. These theoretical arguments are complemented with a case study based on an action research process with policy makers in Gipuzkoa (Basque Country, Spain) that has been ongoing since 2009. The discussion of theory and the case lead to the proposal of two relevant challenges for the integration of co-generative frameworks in the RIS community: the challenge of emergence and the challenge of ideology.

Changing universities through action research: The dilemma of scope in pluralistic environments

The paper departs from the work of Davydd Greenwood and Morten Levin on the transformation of universities through action research to raise the question of how action research can be the engine of change in an organisational setting where conditions are inimical to its practice. It shares some theoretical contributions that frame this challenge and proposes insider action research as a potential method to face it. The paper then presents the case of Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness and its impact in changing the University of Deusto. The case focuses mainly on how this institute has developed insider action research. The case, connected to the previously presented theoretical framework, is used for discussion purposes and to pose what the author terms the dilemma of scope of action research in pluralistic university environments.