The chapter explores the processes by which regional administrations displaying various statutory capabilities and weaknesses have demonstrated accomplishment, creativity, and innovativeness in the face of having to operate in centralised, relatively un-devolved, and non-federal national states. The focus is on a few exemplars of creative regional policy activity from contrasting regional settings in Sweden and Portugal in pursuit of improved innovation accomplishment drawn entirely from the apparently ever-centralising EU. A key reason for this is that in the EU all regions receiving regional assistance from Brussels were required in 2013 to draw up Regional Innovation Strategies if they were to qualify for regional resource transfers from Brussels. So these and other regions are behaving, in innovation terms, according to a logic of uniform rules from both Brussels and their own centralised states. They are thus doubly constrained in their quest for regional innovation policy assistance but their responses display enormous variety and creativity. The chapter proceeds by, first, outlining the rules of the RIS3 then, second, theorising ongoing processes. In the third and fourth sections, there is concentration on regional innovation policy formation in Sweden and Portugal, with preliminary drawing of contrasts and comparisons. Then, in the final section, a brief discussion and conclusions profile can be found.
Public Private Partnerships as a Systemic Instrument of Governance in Regional Innovation Policy
