Common Trajectories of Regional Competitiveness in the Knowledge Economies: A European Investigation

This paper analyses a number of European regions which in the last two decades have exhibited a significant shift towards knowledge-intensive industrial sectors coupled with a considerable increase in competitiveness and growth. The analysis identifies the main factors of territorial development behind each regional renewal process and captures a number of common trajectories of regional competitiveness. Interestingly, all regional ‘success stories’ are strongly dependent on the presence of a tri-polar regional innovation system that glues together firms, government institutions and academia.