DFG project in the project group DACH

Partner: Austrian Institute of Technology, Foresight and Development Department in Vienna

Project Duration: 30 months; starting date September 1^st, 2012

Project Summary:

Regions are the place where innovation takes place. Economic development of regions strongly depends on the sectoral mix of the regional companies and their innovativeness. The INSPIRED project analyzes the dynamic relationships between regional and industrial development. Industrial development is characterized by being embedded in so-called industrial life cycles which describe the tensioned relationship between exploration and exploitation orientations in the innovation activities of companies over time.

An important role in both exploration and exploitation activities is played by innovation networks which allow actors to exchange and jointly develop new knowledge. In almost all technological developments the knowledge behind is characterized by a rich and continuously increasing complexity which makes it extremely difficult for firms to survive without the possibility to access, integrate and use external knowledge. Innovation Networks are considered widely as a promising and powerful organizational device for the organization of industrial innovation.

With respect to regional development, innovation networks at least are characterized by two different features which are relevant in different stages of the industrial life cycles: One the one hand agglomeration and geographical concentration highlight the benefits from exploiting Marshallian externalities which leads to potentially dense networks characterized by shorter geographical as well as technological distances among network participants. On the other hand, the exploration of Jacobian externalities, i.e. benefits from cross-fertilization of seemingly unrelated technologies which might lead to a strong renewal of technological opportunities requires entries into the innovation networks and geographical distance is not of major importance, technological distance is even supposed to be large.

The INSPIRED project deals with two empirical regional studies describing two different points of departure: The Vienna region which attempts to create a new cluster in biopharmaceuticals, and the Stuttgart region with its mature automotive industry and its attempt to renew technological opportunities by changing the technologies underlying the drive train. To find out stylized facts and characteristics patterns of industrial, regional and technological development, INSPIRED develops an agent-based simulation model which allows the analysis of these complex processes driven by knowledge development and complex interactions prevailing in collective innovation processes.