Petr Rumpel

Innovation and knowledge sourcing of modern sectors in old industrial regions: comparing software firms in Moravia-Silesia and Upper Austria:

Old industrial regions in many cases suffer from a predominance of basic and traditional industries as well as a lack of modern sectors and of innovation. Often we find this type of region oriented to traditional sectors and technology paths. The development of new sectors such as software might help to overcome such problems and contribute to diversification and a better innovation performance of such regions. In this context, we examine to what extent the different socioeconomic and institutional background of old industrial regions has an impact on firms’ innovation performance and knowledge sourcing in the new sector. For this purpose we compare software companies in the Czech region of Moravia-Silesia and in the Austrian region of Upper Austria. Both are regions with a considerable industrial tradition but with a quite different historical and institutional background. Whereas Moravia-Silesia region is a part of Czechia – a transformed country with a state socialism and central planning background – Upper Austria is a relatively wealthy region within an advanced market economy with a social partnership background. In this paper we investigate to what extent software firms in these two regions differ in their innovation activities and knowledge-sourcing patterns and how this is related to the institutional background and characteristics of their respective regional innovation systems.

Where Does the Knowledge for Knowledge-intensive Industries Come From? The Case of Biotech in Prague and ICT in Ostrava

The primary aim of this paper is to contribute to current discussion, concerning the role of geography of knowledge sources in knowledge-intensive industries from the perspective of a post-communist country (the Czech Republic), with its specific cultural and historical heritage, as well as its specific institutional and policy context. The article analyses the extent, to which the theoretical conceptualization of analytical and synthetic knowledge bases could be relevant for the geography of knowledge sources, within the emerging ICT and biotech sectors, in two selected regions of the Czech Republic (Prague and Ostrava regions). Our findings confirm the existence of significant variation in the geography of knowledge sources, according to the type of knowledge base (analytical versus synthetic) and the type of knowledge itself (technological versus market knowledge). The article is an outcome of the international project “Constructing Regional Advantage: Towards State-of-the-art Regional Innovation Systems Policies in Europe?”.

Emerging regional innovation strategies in Central Europe: institutions and regional leadership in generating strategic outcomes

The paper seeks to develop a comparative analysis of approaches to innovation support in three self-governing regions of the Czech Republic. Its analytical section presents an in-depth analysis of the development of innovation policies in three regions: the capital city of Prague, South Moravia and the old industrial region of Moravia-Silesia. Key dimensions of regional innovation strategy in each of the three regions are closely scrutinized and critically examined, within the context of state-of-the-art European approaches to innovation policy. Profound differences, both in approaches to innovation policy design and in the results so far achieved, have been found between the studied regions, reflecting differences in both structural and soft factors in the regions in question. Rapid progress, in terms of innovation strategy implementation, is evident in a region where strong knowledge creation capacity (in both the academic and the business spheres) exists in harmony with professional and enthusiastic key personnel in intermediary institutions as well as steady political support from regional decision-makers. The authors believe that some of their observations will have relevance for innovation policy design and implementation in other Czech regions and in other regions of the European Union’s new member states.

The governance of urban shrinkage in cities of post-socialist Europe: policies, strategies and actors

This paper presents results of an international comparative research project ‘Smart governance of shrinking cities in a European context’. In recent years, many European cities have experienced urban shrinkage (population decline). Whereas there has been a wealth of research into the governance of growing cities, little consideration has been given to the governance of and policy responses to shrinking cities, particularly in relation to the declining cities of post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. The aim of this paper is to compare the governance responses to shrinkage in different national contexts and assess the policy responses applied. This is done through the comparison of case studies examining the governance of shrinkage in Leipzig (Germany), Bytom (Poland), Ostrava (Czechia) and Timisoara (Romania). Two different strategies have been identified. First, Leipzig – due to its inclusion in the (former Western) German welfare state – followed a reasonably holistic strategy implemented by strong public actors focused not only on economic growth, but also on tackling issues of falling housing demand and the need to strengthen the attractivity of city centre. Second, in Ostrava, Bytom and Timisoara strategies have been inspired by neoliberal thinking, denying the important role of public sector city planning and ignoring the fact of shrinkage. In these cities, the main reply to shrinkage has been to seek economic development through the attraction of private investment (especially FDI) into the cities and using pragmatically any EU structural funding.

Sozialräumliche Segregationsmuster in schrumpfenden Städten

Sozialraumliche Segregation – die Frage nach der ungleichen Verteilung sozialer Gruppen im Stadtraum – ist ein klassisches Thema der Stadtsoziologie. Die umfangreiche Literatur dazu entstand vor dem Hintergrund wachsender Stadte: von der Einwandererstadt Chicago, vor deren Hintergrund die sozialokologische Chicago School entstand, bis hin zu den immer weiter wachsenden Metropolen der jungeren Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, welche die Inspiration zu den „dual cities“ (Mollenkop und Castells 1991) bzw. „quartered cities“ (Marcuse und van Kempen 2000, 2002) lieferten. Wenig ist jedoch uber die Dynamik und Auspragung sozialraumlicher Segregation in schrumpfenden Stadten bekannt: Stadte, die Bevolkerung verlieren durch Wellen von Suburbanisierung, wirtschaftlichen Strukturwandel, politische Umbruche, Naturkatastrophen und bzw. oder durch den demographischen Wandel (Haase et al. 2013; Couch et al. 2012).