Understanding Geographies of Innovation: Research agglomerations, knowledge networks, and implications for place-based innovation

This project aims to contribute to our understanding of place-based innovation by exploring localised and system-level innovation dynamics in the UK. Recent research, such as the Innovation Cluster Map (DSIT 2024), focuses on local dynamics, mapping clusters of business activity. However, maps such as these only show one part of a complex and not entirely localised innovation system. This project builds an additional layer to the cluster map by exploring the relationship between concentrations of business activities and other parts of the system that underpin them.

This project maps research, innovation projects, commercialisation activities, and related support infrastructures relative to clusters of businesses to explore how knowledge might flow from research assets to commercial applications within specific places. This helps build a localised picture of the collocation of innovation activities at different points of the value chain. A study of a selection of knowledge networks provides a vantage point on the relationship between places to better understand system-level implications and impacts of place-based investments at different value chain stages.

Situating localised specialisms within broader knowledge and innovation systems adds nuance to the contention inherent in clustering and place-based innovation literature that concentrations of activities (e.g., research) generate localised spillovers that confer specific advantages to stakeholders in those places. This relational approach proves that spillovers and knowledge diffusion are not exclusively and may not even be mainly localised. This raises questions and suggests future research pathways on place-based innovation support policies.

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