ABSTRACT
Introduction Countries and regions worldwide are forced by the current economic crisis and a tighter budget constraint to design policies able to balance efficiently the short run downturn with the long run perspectives. The European Union (EU) is trying to achieve such goals with a complex set of interventions where the European innovation strategy, as set out in the Innovation Union initiative, is the crucial instrument to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth in the long run. This strategy, essentially, targets the ability of each region to improve both its internal innovative capacity and, most importantly, its external connective networks with other territories, clusters and innovation players.
