Making smart regions smarter through smart specialization strategies (RIS3) is today on the political and economic agenda. In this context, it becomes a priority to know the regional stakeholders' perception of RIS3, based on the prioritization of the use of resources and capacities in their territories. The aim of this study is to perform a bibliometric analysis with the keywords smart specialization, regional innovation systems, and value, rareness, imitability, and organization (VRIO). The authors aim to contribute to the clarification of the literature on regional innovation ecosystems. They also intend to suggest a new model that allows the VRIO model to be adapted to the territories. Through extensive research using the Web of Science database, five clusters were identified (multiple helix; smart specialization and RIS3; innovation and entrepreneurship; regional policies and knowledge transfer and technology commercialization; regional growth, entrepreneurial, and innovative ecosystem), whose content analysis allowed to construct the conceptual regional helix assessment model.
Top1. Introduction
Research on innovation, entrepreneurship, and competitiveness has intensified over time. The emergence of new regional innovation policies in the general public policy stream is a consequence of recent economic crises, as well as the result of more than four decades of research. This study takes new positions on the role of entrepreneurship and innovation in regional economic development, highlighting the importance of collaborative networks.
Currently, the world is composed of “smart regions” and “smart cities”(Kourtit & Nijkamp, 2018; Lopes & Franco, 2017; Markkula & Kune, 2015). Successful regional entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems have been formed from a solid knowledge base, reconciling a network of complementary innovation processes with combinations of innovation resources (talent, funding, and infrastructure).
Entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems are defined by the combinations of social, political, economic and cultural elements in a region. These ecosystems support the development and growth of innovative start-ups. (Lopes, Farinha, & Ferreira, 2018; Spigel & Harrison, 2018) encourage entrepreneurs in their early stages to take the risks to start the business (Spigel, 2017).
The triple (industry, government and academia) and quadruple (industry, government, academia, and society) helixes are increasingly recognized as a source of regional innovation, which encourages the transformation of scientific and technological research results into economic outcomes, in particular as reference for the development of Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialization (RIS3In recent decades, it has been revealed that the dynamics of interaction between triple helix agents have resulted in important advances in the field of innovation, supported in some cases by collaborative projects supported by public funds.This thinking has gained increasing acceptance as a promising structured regional approach in a knowledge-based economy (Carayannis, Grigoroudis, Campbell, Meissner, & Stamati, 2018; Etzkowitz, 2003; Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000).
With the implementation of RIS3 in the European Union (EU), it is expected that the most developed economies in R&D systems will be able to invest in the creation of new intensive activities with a strong science component. In contrast, the least developed economies should focus their R&D on areas where the industry has already was implemented” (Foray, David, & Hall, 2009; Foray et al., 2012). RIS3 has changed our understanding of the role innovation plays in economic development, focusing on the regions.
When RIS3 came into being, regions had to select smart specialization domains, as well as their priorities, in areas where the region has a relative advantage. RIS3 consists of investing in knowledge, human capital, industrial and technological capital, and territorial skills (Camagni & Capello, 2013; Muller, Zenker, Hufnagl, Heraud, et al., 2017). RIS3 highlighted the key role played by Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in regional development (Secundo, Perez, Martinaitis, & Leitner, 2017). HEIs represent sources of entrepreneurial activities through leadership, knowledge and technology transfer, as well as their commercialization (Klofsten & Jones-Evans, 2000; Lopes, Ferreira, Farinha, & Raposo, 2018).
HEIs currently have three missions. However, traditionally, the mission of HEIs focused only on research and teaching. However, regional governments began to encourage HEIs to spread their learning processes by transferring knowledge to society (Etzkowitz, Webster, Gebhardt, & Terra, 2000). Over time, more and more academic participants engage in entrepreneurial activities. These activities were considered as a “third mission” of HEIs, as well as the means for their qualification as entrepreneurial universities. (Laredo, 2007).