CIMR Working Papers

Editors: Helen Lawton Smith, Klaus Nielsen and Carlo Milana

The objective of the CIMR Working Papers is to publicise research being done by its academics, PhD students, Research fellows, Visiting fellows, Stakeholders and visitors.

For further details contact Helen Lawton Smith at h.lawton-smith@bbk.ac.uk

The CIMR Working Papers series can be found on Repec and BIROn.

2023

WP68 Integration of small-scale farmers into innovation management within contract farming companies in developing countries, Nomenjanahary Tojonirinarisoa Ravelosaona

This paper examines how contract farming companies in Africa effectively manage innovation while working with small-scale farmers, emphasizing the importance of understanding farmers’ limitations and using participatory approaches, data-driven decision-making, and continuous feedback collection to foster innovation

WP67 Is users rating becoming overpowering? The risks of inappropriate use of digital feedback, Daniele Archibugi and Natalia Tosoni

The feed-back generated by consumers and citizens about products and services is helping to reduce information asymmetries, but may also lead to unexpected forms of social control against which we need to react.

WP66 Women entrepreneurs: positioning equality, diversity and inclusion leadership in times of crisis, Helen Lawton Smith

This paper demonstrates how disabled women entrepreneurs have been able to respond quickly during the Covid 19 crisis in addressing challenges faced by disabled entrepreneurs. It gives examples of women who have distinctive voices as leaders and advocates on behalf of minority entrepreneurs.

WP65 Case study research on innovation systems: paradox, dialectical analysis and resolution, Thanos Fragkandreas

This paper deals with a largely unnoticed methodological paradox concerning the scientific status of case study research on innovation systems (ISs). The paper not only resolves the case study paradox but also enables innovation researchers to reimagine and conduct case study research in a stand-alone, paradox-free, causal explanatory and generalisable way.

WP64 The macroeconomic effects of public expenditure in research and development, Giovanna Ciaffi, Matteo Deleidi and Enrico Sergio Levrero

This paper investigates the impact of public R&D on economic growth and the R&D investment carried out by the private sector.  It draws on a dataset of 15 OECD countries for the period 1981-2017.

WP63 The innovation networks of city-regions in Europe: exclusive clubs or inclusive hubs?, Andrea Filippetti and Antonio Zinilli

Innovation collaboration is a crucial mechanism for knowledge diffusion across regions and countries.  Which role do city-regions play in European innovation diffusion? In the exclusive network model city-regions establish a closed network of innovators among themselves; in the inclusive network models city-regions build a network of innovators which includes the peripheral regions. We show that the two models coexist: city-regions act as both engines of generation and diffusion of innovation.

2022

WP62 Geopolitical and Environmental Implications of the Ukraine Conflict, Keith Smith

This paper argues that the Ukraine war has reconfigured the geopolitical structure of the world. The sanctions regime adopted by the West will not significantly damage either the Russian or Chines economies because they have comprehensive resource bases and industrial capabilities. But the resulting bipolar geopolitical structure severely inhibits the global collaboration that is necessary to deal with the innovation challenges of climate change.

WP61 Applying the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept to regional entrepreneurship policy analysis – a critique, Jonathan Potter, Helen Lawton Smith

This paper reports on an application of the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept across five case study regions in two countries – the United Kingdom and Poland – focusing on the policy insights it provides and its usefulness as a policy development tool.

WP60 Three decades of research on innovation and inequality: causal scenarios, explanatory factors, and suggestions, Thanos Fragkandreas

This paper presents a critical review of studies on innovation and inequality (1990-2019) based on a systematic literature review. While the majority of studies agree that innovation induces inequality, the finding is subject to disciplinary and country under investigation. It is concluded that the relationship between innovation and inequality is subject to five causal scenarios and a range of explanatory factors.

WP59 The material basis of modern technologies. A case study on rare metals, George Yunxiong Li, Andrea Ascani, Simona Iammarino

Rare metals (RMs) have become a material basis for advanced technological change: this relationship is particularly strong for emerging fields such as semiconductors, nanotechnology and green energy technologies. This study contributes to the understanding of how technological dynamics are shaped by the availability of natural resources with technological criticality.

A short interview with Prof. Iammarino discussing this paper is available here.

WP58 How can digital technology be used to maximise the social value delivered through major infrastructure projects?, Jeremy Galpin

This paper provides 12 practical recommendations arising from research into the opportunities, risks and barriers in the use of digital technology, to maximise social value, through major infrastructure projects. This research addresses the gap around the intersection between social value, digital technology, and the infrastructure sector in existing literature.

2021

WP57 Mapping the distribution of Internet of Things competences across European regions, Margherita Russo, Annalisa Caloffi, Ana Colovic, Pasquale Pavone, Saverio Romeo, Federica Rossi

Digital transformation is a key strategic issue for countries and regions aiming to boost economic growth, job creation, technology development and innovation. With a focus on the Internet of Things (IoT) the paper maps the potential of IoT technologies across European regions, using textual analysis applied to the description of companies’ activities.

WP56 Innovation systems and income inequality: In search of causal mechanisms, Thanos Fragkandreas

The paper identifies seven causal mechanisms through which innovation as a systemic activity affects the distribution of income in modern-day economies.

A short interview with Dr Thanos Fragkandreas discussing this paper is available to watch here.

WP55 Mapping ethnic minority women entrepreneurs’ support initiatives: Experiences from the UK, Helen Lawton Smith and Beldina Owalla

This paper provides evidence of the geography of support initiatives available to ethnic minority women entrepreneurs in the UK. It analyses the data from an inclusive ecosystem approach

WP54 The emerging quantum technology industry: Capital cities, entrepreneurship and policies, Saverio Romeo, Helen Lawton Smith, Erran Carmel and John Slater

This review paper on the emerging quantum technology sector presents a survey of academic and industry sources to explore the current position of Washington DC and London UK as concentrations of relevant innovation activity. It explores the conditions under which certain parts of the innovation process are located in these two capital cities.

A short interview with Saverio Romeo discussing this paper is available to watch here.

WP53 Individual risk attitudes and local unemployment: Evidence from Italy in the Great Recession, Andrea Filippetti and Neil Lee

The willingness to take risks is an important part of the economy which is shaped both by personal characteristics and local context. We investigate whether individual risk-taking is influenced by the local economy. After controlling for individual characteristics we find that worsening unemployment reduces people’s willingness to take risks.

A short interview with Dr Andrea Filippetti discussing this paper is available to watch here.

WP52 Towards a problem-oriented regional industrial policy: Possibilities for public intervention in framing, valuation and market creation, Kieron Flanagan, Elvira Uyarra and Iris Wanzenböck

The starting point of this paper is that the dominant supply side approach to innovation and industrial policy is insufficient to inform a regional development agenda that can address place-based environmental and societal challenges. This paper builds on political/policy science approaches and sociology of markets and valuation approaches to suggest new possibilities for innovation and industrial policy interventions

WP51 Disability entrepreneurship research: review and critical reflection through the lens of individual-opportunity nexus, Te Klangboonkrong and Ning Baines

Given the paucity and the fragmented nature of the extant literature on disability entrepreneurship, this systematic literature review juxtaposes the current body of knowledge to the individual-opportunity nexus perspective on entrepreneurship. The finding shows six emerging themes, which suggest that while the term disability is understood in relation to structural hindrances on multiple levels, current understanding of how these challenges could be overcome is mostly related to adaptive mechanisms at the individual level. 

A short interview with Dr Ning Baines discussing this paper is available to watch here.

WP50 Is a European Recovery possible without High-Tech Public Corporations?, Daniele Archibugi and Vitantonio Mariella

Pervasive new technologies associated with ICTs and software are dominated by a restricted oligopoly of US-based corporations. This article argues that the EU urgently needs to add another economic policy instrument to defy these incumbent firms, namely to create a few publicly supported large corporations in the areas of greater scientific and technological opportunities.

WP49 Public innovation intermediaries and digital co-creation, Federica Rossi, Ana Colovic, Annalisa Caloffi and Margherita Russo

Building on a case study of public innovation intermediaries in France and the UK, we argue that these organisations have a specific role to play in the context on the emerging, complex, and yet not fully commoditised set of technologies underpinning the ‘fourth industrial revolution’.

WP48 Financial crisis of 2008 and outward foreign investments from China and India, Suma Athreye, Abubakr Saeed and Muhammad Saad Baloch

Chinese and Indian outward investment paths that looked so similar before 2008 began to diverge rapidly after the financial crisis. This paper proposes that the motives for outward investment interacted with the sources of financing this investment to produce this divergent outcome.

A short interview with Prof Suma Athreye discussing this paper is available to watch here.

WP47 Centripetal and centrifugal forces in technological activities: linking regional innovation performances to EU Science & Technology policies, Daniele Archibugi, Riccardo Evangelista and Antonio Vezzani.

Have the EU policies for science and technology, specifically the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, contributed to reduce or to amplify regional differences in innovation? And, how could the contrasting objectives of reducing geographical disparities and promoting EU excellence be achieved?

A short interview with Prof Rinaldo Evangelista discussing this paper is available to watch here.

2020

WP46 Experience versus youth: An exploratory study of the motivations of older entrepreneurs, Gillian Gray and Helen Lawton Smith.

The decision of someone over the age of 50 to switch from traditional employment to being an entrepreneur is found to arise from a complex mix of personal motivation, access to resources and environmental determinants.

WP45 Digitalization and the transnational corporations, Grazia Ietto-Gillies.

The paper focuses on digital transnational corporations and the challenges they pose for theory and policy. The theory of transnationals may need rethinking as the balance between foreign assets, revenues and employment diverges from more traditional transnationals. The major policy challenge is in terms governments trying to counteract the ease with which the digital TNCs can minimise their tax liability world wide. (A revised version of this working paper has now been published as: Ietto-Gillies, G. (2021) ‘Transnationality in the XXI century. Concept and indicators’, Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 18, 3: 338-361 – https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-11-2020-0135).

2019

WP44 International knowledge flows between industry inventors and universities: the role of multinational companies, Claudio Fassio, Aldo Geuna and Federica Rossi.

We investigate the determinants of industry researchers’ interactions with universities in different localities, distinguishing between local and international universities. Our findings suggest that industry researchers’ personal networks play a greater role in promoting interactions with local universities while researcher employment in a multinational is especially important for establishing interactions with universities abroad.

WP43 Regional income disparities, monopoly & finance, Maryann Feldman, Fred Guy and Simona Iammarino.

Many of the most prosperous places in the U.S. are hotbeds of technology and also the home bases of companies which exercise monopoly power across much larger territories – nationally, or even globally. This paper makes four arguments about how monopoly power and financialization increase regional income disparities.

WP42 Fast growing and key enabling technologies and their impact on regional growth in Europe. Rinaldo Evangelista, Valentina Meliciani and Antonio Vezzani.

This paper studies the specialisation of EU regions in key enabling (KETs) and fast growing (FGTs) technologies and assesses whether being specialized in these technological areas has an effect on regional growth. The evidence presented shows that only specialisation in KETs affects regional economic growth, while no significant effects are found for FGTs.

WP41 Universities, graduates and local labour markets. Helen Lawton Smith and Rupert Waters.

This paper challenges the idea of a direct association between the presence of universities and the level of skills in the workforce by comparing two neighbouring counties in the South East of England, both prosperous areas in the UK. These are Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire..

2018

WP40 Interorganisational collaboration in Academic Health Science Centre: a case study on King’s Health Partnership. Ellen Siu.

This paper explores the interorganisational collaboration phenomenon in university-hospital partnership, focusing on how clinical and scientific actors in an Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) leverage different proximity dimensions in translational research.

WP39 Participatory ethics in biotech research: decisions identifying barriers to the adoption and implementation of participatory decision making in the biotech industry. Leila Maria Kehl.

Based on a critical analysis of the current stakeholder management in the biotechnology industry, the concept of Participatory Research Ethics (PRE) is introduced to the literature on participatory stakeholder approaches. It addresses and aims to overcome current obstacles that hinder the implementation of the established concepts, Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) and Participatory Action Research (PAR).

2017

WP38 A tale of persistent network additionality, with evidence from a regional policy. Annalisa Caloffi, Federica Rossi and Margherita Russo.

Adopting a counterfactual approach to the evaluation of a regional R&D; collaboration policy, carried out in Tuscany (Italy), we investigate different types of persistent network additionality, namely persistence effect, breadth effect, composition effect, and depth effect.

WP37 Innovation in risky markets. Multinational and domestic firms in the UK regions. Luisa Gagliardi and Simona Iammarino.

This paper analyses the relationship between firm engagement in innovation and perception of market risk. It points to heterogeneity in the behaviour of multinationals (MNEs) versus single domestic firms, emphasising how this relationship changes across regional contexts.

WP36 Entrepreneurship policies and the development of regional innovation systems: theory, policy and practice. Helen Lawton Smith.

The paper provides an appraisal and synthesis of the regional innovation systems approach in relation to entrepreneurship policies. It addresses a number of areas where theoretical, empirical and policy-based issues are currently under-developed in relation to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship policy.

2016

WP35 Science, Innovation and Technology Transfer Pathways in Translational Research: A Study of Divergent Trajectories in the Healthcare Sector in Europe. Helen Lawton Smith, Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen and Laurel Edmunds.

The geography of the biomedical sector, that of clustering in particular regions, presents an opportunity for place-specific understanding of processes involved in translational research in medical sciences, particularly with regard to the role of public policy and its outcomes in four bioscience regions in Europe.

WP34 Designing performance-based incentives for innovation intermediaries: Evidence from regional innovation poles. Margherita Russo, Annalisa Caloffi, Federica Rossi and Riccardo Righi.

The paper focuses on the issue of how to identify appropriate indicators to measure the performance of publicly-funded innovation intermediaries. It argues that indicators need to be closely tied to the policy’s objectives, which are usually linked to the remedying of innovation system failures. The case of a policy programme implemented in Tuscany (Italy) is used to illustrate how the choice of performance indicators that are only loosely tied to the policy’s objectives, can lead intermediaries to adopt behaviours that are misaligned with those objectives. The findings are then used to develop some implications for the design of performance indicators that are aligned with the objectives of policy.

A short interview with Dr Annalisa Caloffi discussing this paper is available to watch here.

WP33 Overeducation and overskill in the Italian labour market: the role of fields of study. Valentina Meliciani and Debora Radicchia

This paper investigates the role of skill heterogeneity in affecting differences in occupational mismatch across fields of study. By relying on measures of overeducation and overskill collected in the 2014 ISFOL survey, we test to which extent the two phenomena differ across fields of study and the role played by merit and non-cognitive skills. We find that having an excellent graduate curriculum significantly decreases over-education and over-skill, while non-cognitive skills do not matter.

WP32 Understanding the Dynamics of Triple Helix Interactions. The Case of English Higher Education Institutions. Mabel Sánchez Barrioluengo, Elvira Uyarra and Fumi Kitagawa.

This paper examines the evolution of the dynamics of the triple helix interactions exemplified by the case of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in England. Results highlight the persisting heterogeneity between HEIs in their combination, geography and evolution of triple helix interactions, particularly between research oriented universities and newer universities with strong teaching orientations.

WP31 The Retreat of Public Research and its Adverse Consequences on Innovation Daniele Archibugi and Andrea Filippetti

In the last decades a major trend has been ignored: both the quota of public R&D and its share over the total R&D investment has shrunk in most OECD countries. As a result, a larger fraction of knowledge is today generated in the private sector. We argue that this is a major problem since public research and private research differ along a number of characteristics. This has implications for innovation and welfare. Through the lens of the public goods theory and the evolution of R&D for the period 1981-2012 we try to explain why.

WP30 Academic Inventors: Collaboration and Proximity with Industry Riccardo Crescenzi, Andrea Filippetti, and Simona Iammarino

This paper addresses a number of questions on university-industry (U-I) collaborations. We find that U-I collaborations are less likely to happen when compared to other types of collaboration. Geographical proximity facilitates collaboration; it also works as a possible substitute for institutional proximity, facilitating U-I collaborations. ‘Star inventors’ play an important role in ‘bridging’ universities and industry.

WP29 Train the worst or train the best? The determinants of employer-sponsored training in five European countries Francesca Sgobbi

The paper investigates the effectiveness of training initiatives by checking whether a measure of employee-job fit and a measure of employee potential are significant determinants of participation in employer-sponsored training undertaken for job-related reasons. The empirical analysis, extended to five large EU countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK), is based on OECD PIAAC Survey.

2015

WP28: Does training help in times of crisis? Training in employment in Northern and Southern Italy Andrea Filippetti, Frederick Guy, and Simona Iammarino

This paper explores the relative effectiveness of training in securing continued employment in a time of economic downturn, within the context of the Italian territorial dualism. We use a panel on 4,861 individuals for the period 2008-2011 and focus on how the effects of training differ between the South and the Centre-North of Italy, and also across workers with different levels of education.

WP27: An exploration of interactive contextual and dispositional factors which influence a collective process of entrepreneurial activity: a novel case at Bristol Zoo Natalie Holden

This paper explores how environmental – social, spatial, temporal and institutional – contexts and individual motivations interact to influence entrepreneurial behaviour during a process of collaborative innovation. This is a qualitative case study into an Innovate UK funded inter-industry collaboration which took place in Bristol from 2011-2014.

WP26: The impact of female entrepreneurship on economic growth in Kenya Rachel Lock and Helen Lawton Smith

This paper explores the challenges facing female entrepreneurs in Kenya. A key theme is how, through the improved availability of micro-finance, women’s entrepreneurship is becoming a successful model for lifting women and their immediate families out of poverty.

WP25: Two Decades of Research on Innovation Paradoxes: A Review, An Explanatory Typology, and Suggestions for Future Research Thanos Fragkandreas

The paper provides an extensive review on two of the most popular innovation paradoxes in the literature of innovation studies, that of the European paradox and of the Swedish paradox. It draws some important conclusions relevant for both theory and practice.”

WP24: Monitoring the knowledge transfer performance of universities: An international comparison of models and indicators Ainurul Rosli and Federica Rossi

This paper discusses how to appropriately monitor and assess the performance of universities’ knowledge transfer activities. In light of different models of how knowledge flows from university to industry – each requiring different indicators – we compare four monitoring exercises currently implemented in the UK, US and Canada, Australia and Europe.

WP23: Technology, development and economic crisis: the Schumpeterian legacy Rinaldo Evangelista

This contribution highlights the complex, non-linear and potentially contradictory nature of the relationships between technological progress, economic growth and social development, in particular within the context of market based economies. It is also argued that a “positivistic bias” affects also the neo-Schumpeterian literature characterized by the dominance of a supply-side and micro-based view of the technology-economy relationships.

WP22: The Effect of Initial Public Offerings on Firm Innovation Matthew Crail Johnson

This paper explore the ex post effect that initial public offerings have on the innovative performance of companies using a quantitative measure of patent activity in the years preceding and following the event.

2014

WP21: Youth Guarantee and the Italian PES: insights from ISFOL PLUS Survey data Emiliano Mandrone, David D’Angelo

This paper uses data from the ISFOL PLUS Survey to focus on the specific features of the Italian labour market and of the Italian Public Employment Services (PESs) so as to analyse the difficulties that they face in responding to the challenges posed by the Youth Guarantee (YG), both in terms of reorganisation and of strengthened financial effort.

WP20: Explaining the gap between policy aspirations and implementation: The case of university knowledge transfer policy in the United Kingdom Ainurul Rosli, Federica Rossi

The paper proposes a conceptual framework to explain why, particularly when policies deal with complex and ambiguous issues, an increasing gap may open up between government-set objectives and the instruments used for policy implementation and evaluation: the former are characterized by increasing breadth and ambiguity, while the latter become progressively narrower in scope. The case of policies in support of university-industry knowledge transfer in the United Kingdom is used as an illustration of how these processes can play out in practice.

WP19: Informal Network, Spatial Mobility and Overeducation in the Italian Labour Market Valentina Meliciani, Debora Radicchia

The paper investigates the consequence of the use of the informal recruitment channel on the phenomenon of overeducation and on the internal migration in the Italian labour market.

WP18: The effect of external knowledge sources and their geography on innovation in Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) SMEs; some Implications for de-industrialised regions in the UK Maja Savic, Helen Lawton Smith and Ioannis Bournakis

The paper explores the effect of external knowledge sources and their geography on innovation activity in small Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS). It draws on results from a survey conducted in 2010 of 342 small and medium (SME) KIBS in the UK’s North East and West Midlands.

WP17: Intra-industry effects of Foreign Multinationals in the UK: Local Innovation and Firm Heterogeneity Riccardo Crescenzi, Luisa Gagliardi, Simona Iammarino

This paper investigates whether the presence of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) carrying out investment activities in the UK benefits the innovation capacity of domestic firms within the same industry.

WP16: The efficiency of universities’ knowledge transfer activities: A multi-output approach beyond patenting and licensing Federica Rossi

Using data from the United Kingdom, we analyse the relative efficiency with which university institutions engage in knowledge transfer activities, and study the institutional and environmental factors that influence their efficiency. While most current studies limit their focus to intellectual property disclosures, we focus on a broad range of knowledge transfer outputs that include also research and consultancy contracts, professional training courses, and public engagements.

2013

WP15: Born Global’s Use Of Innovative Solutions To Create Sustainable Competitive Advantages As It Expands And Grows In Different International Markets Svante Andersson, Gabriel Awuah, Ingemar Wictor

This paper deals with how born global firms learn from own experiences and from other actors, with whom the firms interact in foreign markets, to create innovative solutions for international growth.

WP14: The contribution of Business services to the export performances of manufacturing industries. An empirical study on 5 European countries Rinaldo Evangelista, Matteo Lucchese, Valentina Meliciani

WP13: Indicators of university-industry knowledge transfer performance and their implications for universities: evidence from the UK’s HE-BCI survey Federica Rossi and Ainurul Rosli

This paper outlines some critical issues connected with the choice of appropriate indicators in the measurement of universities’ performance in knowledge transfer.

WP12: Entrepreneurship, innovation and the triple helix model: evidence from Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire Helen Lawton Smith, Saverio Romeo and Rupert Waters

The paper focuses on how regions become entrepreneurial and the extent to which the actors in the triple helix model are dominant at particular stages in development. It uses the case studies of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire in the UK to explore this theme.

WP11: Can a teaching university be an entrepreneurial university? Civic Entrepreneurship and the Formation of A Cultural Cluster in Ashland, Oregon Henry Etzkowitz

The paper examines how the concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation can be expanded into different forms to map civic entrepreneurship. To do so it uses the case of the makings of a cultural cluster in Oregon in the USA.

WP10: The Role of Internationalization as a Determinant of Innovation Performance. An Analysis of 42 Countries. Andrea Filippetti, Marion Frenz, Grazia Ietto-Gillies

This paper analyses the impact of internationalization on the innovation performance of 42 countries and for these countries finds support that competing in international markets via outward FDI and exports increases the scope of learning and the need to innovate.

2012

WP 9: Social Capital, Industrial Districts and Regional Unemployment in Italy Luca Andriani

We consider the industrial districts “conductors” of social capital. Hence, we use the regional density of industrial districts to measure social capital and we analyse its impact on regional unemployment in Italy.

WP 8: Education-Job (Mis)Matching And Interregional Migration: Italian University Graduates’ Transition To Work Simona Iammarino, Elisabetta Marinelli

This paper explores the patterns of education-job (mis)matching of recent university graduates, focussing on the impact of interregional migration.

WP 7: Skills, social insurance, and changes in innovation investment after the onset of the financial crisis in Europe Andrea Filippetti, Frederick Guy

We find that firms in countries which have both high earnings replacement rates and high participation in vocational education and training were less likely to reduce investments in innovation following the onset of the financial crisis; countries with only one of these features were more likely to see reduced investment in innovation; job security appears to have no effect.

WP 6: Economic crisis and innovation: is destruction prevailing over accumulation? Daniele Archibugi, Andrea Filippetti, Marion Frenz

This paper, based on the latest three waves of the UK Community Innovation Survey, compares drivers of innovation investment before and during the crisis, and finds that the crisis led to a concentration of innovative activities among fast growing and already innovative firms.

WP 5: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Innovation: Evidence from Europe Daniele Archibugi, Andrea Filippetti, Marion Frenz

Building on the Schumpeterian hypotheses of creative destruction and technological accumulation, the paper compares drivers of innovation investment before, during and following on from the onset of the recent economic crisis through the analysis of a fresh survey of European firms.

WP 4: Regional variety and employment growth in Italian labour market areas: services versus manufacturing industries Francesca Mameli, Simona Iammarino, Ron Boschma

This paper investigates the effects of different forms of regional sectoral diversity on employment growth of Italian manufacturing and service industries.

WP3: How to Sustain Entrepreneurial Performance during the Current Financial Crisis (BIROn) Michael Kianfar, Helen Lawton Smith, Carlo Milana

The current phase of the financial crisis which poses problems to companies, policy makers and academicians, requires profound re-thinking and reorganization of strategies, actions and instruments.

WP2: Clusters, human capital and economic development in Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire Rupert Waters, Helen Lawton Smith

Building on previous work (Lawton Smith and Waters, 2011) this paper draws on national datasets to review the continued and different development of the high tech economies of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

2011

WP1: Connected innovation: An international comparative study that identifies mixed modes of innovation Marion Frenz and Ray Lambert

This paper develops a typology of mixed modes of innovation – bundles of activities done by firms jointly to bring about new developments – and examines the role of the innovation modes in performance through the empirical analysis of innovation survey data from 18 OECD countries.