The Concept of Learning within the Systems of Innovation Approaches

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ake Uhlin

The OECD, the EU, and a growing number of national governments have enthusiastically agreed with ideas about innovation systems. At the center of this set of ideas is the notion that learning is the most important process in the economy of the information age. This paper is an epistemological and methodological inquiry into the concept of learning within what economists call ‘the systems of innovation approaches’. Two conclusions are drawn: (1) notions concerning the concept of learning within this new framework of economic thinking are, in general, ambiguous; (2) furthermore, and in particular, ideas of expansive and collective learning in complex systems, ideas that more or less define the concept of innovation, are virtually non-existent within the framework.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-173
Author(s):  
Andrzej Lorkowski ◽  
Robert Jeszke

The whole world is currently struggling with one of the most disastrous pandemics to hit in modern times – Covid-19. Individual national governments, the WHO and worldwide media organisations are appealing for humanity to universally stay at home, to limit contact and to stay safe in the ongoing fight against this unseen threat. Economists are concerned about the devastating effect this will have on the markets and possible outcomes. One of the countries suffering from potential destruction of this situation is Poland. In this article we will explain how difficult internal energy transformation is, considering the long-term crisis associated with the extraction and usage of coal, the European Green Deal and current discussion on increasing the EU 2030 climate ambitions. In the face of an ongoing pandemic, the situation becomes even more challenging with each passing day.


Author(s):  
José van

The epilogue sketches a few scenarios on potential geopolitical consequences of the global paradigm shift toward multiple online platform “spheres.” Currently, the neoliberal US-based platform ecosystem dominates. This ecosystem revolves around the promotion of individualism and minimal state interference, leaving checks and balances to the market. On the other end of the ideological spectrum is the Chinese ecosystem, in which the autocratic regime controls the platform ecosystem via regulated censorship of tech corporations. Squeezed between the US and the Chinese models is the European Union, whose member states neither own nor operate any major platforms in either ecosystem. For European democracies to survive in the information age, its cities, national governments, and supranational legislature need to collaborate on a blueprint for a common digital strategy toward markets and public sectors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-187
Author(s):  
Lise Esther Herman ◽  
Julian Hoerner ◽  
Joseph Lacey

AbstractOver the last decade, the EU’s fundamental values have been under threat at the national level, in particular among several Central and Eastern European states that joined the EU since 2004. During this time, the European People’s Party (EPP) has been criticized for its unwillingness to vote for measures that would sanction the Hungarian Fidesz government, one of its members, in breach of key democratic principles since 2010. In this paper, we seek to understand how cohesive the EPP group has been on fundamental values-related votes, how the position of EPP MEPs on these issues has evolved over time, and what explains intra-EPP disagreement on whether to accommodate fundamental values violators within the EU. To address these questions, we analyse the votes of EPP MEPs across 24 resolutions on the protection of EU fundamental values between 2011 and 2019. Our findings reveal below-average EPP cohesion on these votes, and a sharp increase in the tendency of EPP MEPs to support these resolutions over time. A number of factors explain the disagreements we find. While the EPP’s desire to maintain Fidesz within its ranks is central, this explanation does not offer a comprehensive account of the group’s accommodative behaviour. In particular, we find that ideological factors as well as the strategic interests of national governments at the EU level are central to understanding the positions of EPP MEPs, as well as the evolution of these positions over time. These results further our understanding of the nature of the obstacles to EU sanctions in fundamental values abuse cases, and the role of partisanship in fuelling EU inaction especially.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 36-48
Author(s):  
Olha Demedyuk ◽  
Khrystyna Prytula

In the recent decade, the EU Member States have been actively implementing the regional development policy based on innovative strategies of smart specialization. However, lately, European researchers have been paying increasing attention to the issues of regions’ capacity to overcome the boundaries of administrative units inside the country and abroad and to the need to consider regions in the context of their functioning among others, especially from the viewpoint of the growing role of their innovative networks in global value chains. That is why currently the EU is addressing the development of cross-border smart specialization strategies. The paper aims to study the European experience on the functioning of cross-border innovation systems and joint strategic planning of cross-border regions’ development based on smart specialization and to outline the opportunities to implement the EU experience of cross-border approach to smart specialization in cross-border regions of Ukraine with EU Member States. The paper analyzes the views of foreign researchers on the links between innovation systems in cross-border space that constitute the theoretical basis of the study of cross-border smart specialization strategies, namely regarding the dimensions and level of their development. The research of European scientists on cross-border innovation systems in specific cross-border regions is examined, in particular on Spanish-French and German-French borders. Directions of implementation of smart specialization projects in cross-border context under the EU programs and other EU instruments that support regions in cooperation for the elaboration of joint view of development with neighbouring economically, socially, culturally, and historically close regions are outlined. The experience and methodology of the first cross-border smart specialization strategy for Spanish and Portuguese regions are studied in detail. The opportunities to use the EU experience by several Western Ukrainian regions based on the joint smart specialization priorities with the neighboring EU states are outlined. For this purpose, 1) the RIS3 strategies of the regions of Poland and Romania adjoining Ukraine and Regional Development Strategies of respective Ukrainian regions were analyzed to detect similar smart specialization priorities; 2) the clusters in the mentioned regions were analyzed as main drivers of achievement of smart specialization goals to detect similar or complementary functioning areas.


2021 ◽  
pp. 852-870
Author(s):  
Richard Whish ◽  
David Bailey

This chapter briefly discusses the subject of merger control. Merger control is an important component of most, though not all, systems of competition law. Merger control has been under particular scrutiny in recent years, partly as a result of the rapid development of digital technologies and the emergence of powerful digital platforms. Separately there has been a certain backlash against the trend towards the globalisation of markets, and national governments, as well as the EU, have considered whether controls over the foreign acquisition of key industries are required, and whether the basic test of merger control – would a merger be harmful to competition? – should be supplemented by broader provisions enabling ‘the public interest’ to be taken into account. Against this background, the chapter begins by explaining what is meant by a ‘merger’ or ‘concentration’, the term used by the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR). It then proceeds to describe the different effects of mergers between independent firms from within and different production levels, the proliferation of systems of merger control, why firms merge, and the purpose of merger control. The final section of the chapter deals with how to design a system of merger control when a country decides, as a matter of policy, to adopt one.


Author(s):  
Thomas Kalinowski

The global role of the European Union and its position in the trilemma triangle differ substantially from the global–hegemonic approach pursued by US finance-led capitalism. This chapter first explores the historical choices that countries in Europe made after the collapse of the BWS and the internal, regional dynamics of an emerging integration-led euro capitalism. We show that the EU (and until 1992 the European Economic Community) developed a distinct regional solution for the challenges of globalization with the creation of the single market and the European Monetary Union. This growth model is based economically on a specific European complementary specialization production system and politically on a distinct form of euro-corporatism. This does not mean that national governments and national political economies have become irrelevant, but rather that there is a convergence towards a common EU position when it comes to global economic governance.


2021 ◽  
pp. 96-131
Author(s):  
Nick Vaughan-Williams

Chapter 4 shifts the analytical focus from elite claims made in the name of ‘the people’ to EU citizens’ vernacular knowledge of migration. Particular emphasis is given to the vernacular knowledge and categories used by citizens to discuss the issue of migration as it is perceived to impact and disrupt their everyday lives, the underpinning assumptions about hierarchies of race and gender used to position citizens in relation to perceptions about different ‘types’ of people on the move, and citizens’ awareness of/support for dominant governmental and media representations of the issue of migration in Europe. As well as offering a map of these contours, the discussion identifies three overriding themes. First, vernacular conversations problematize the notion of a linear transmission between elite crisis narratives and their reception among diverse publics. Second, the claim that elite narratives merely ventriloquize what ‘the people’ think about and want in regard to about migration is challenged by the complexity and nuance of vernacular narratives. Third, EU citizens repeatedly spoke of what they perceived to be a series of ‘information gaps’, which led to a widespread distrust of mainstream politicians and media sources, anxieties about their individual and collective futures, and demands for more detailed, higher quality, and accessible knowledge about migration from the EU, national governments, media sources, and academics. By taking vernacular views and experiences of migration seriously we can better understand how the propagation of misinformation, confusion, and uncertainty among EU citizens set the scene for populist notions of ‘taking back control’ to thrive.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-70
Author(s):  
Paweł Mateusz Gadocha

Abstract An increase of Chinese investment into the territory of the European Union has raised EU regulators’ concerns regarding the public security of the EU. As a result, the new Framework Regulation 2019/452 establishing a framework for the screening of FDI into the EU was adopted as a legal instrument aimed at their control, applicable from 11 October 2020. Adopted within the scope of Common Commercial Policy of the EU, the Framework Regulation, however, might not become an effective legal measure, as its application by Member States both in light of the freedom of movement of capital and the relevant CJEU jurisprudence raises significant legal questions. This article broadly discusses the newly introduced cooperation mechanism between Member States and the European Commission, as well as the relevant effect of the Framework Regulation upon Chinese investment and the pending negotiations of the EU-China BIT.


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