ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses some of the more pertinent points raised in the 'New Regionalism' debate, like how 'regions' are constituted and how the 'regional scale' relates to what they call the 'multi-level polity' in the European Union. It explores the potential of regional innovation strategies in the context of less favoured regions and, contrary to critics, argues that they have an important role to play in regional renewal even though their impact to date has been modest. The chapter suggests that the most limiting aspect of the 'New Regionalism' debate is that virtually all contributions tend to confine themselves to an inordinately narrow metric of development and this tends to conflate what is instrumentally significant with what is intrinsically significant. It examines the larger issues at a finer grain by exploring the scope for regional action in the fields of innovation and sustainable development, two fields which pose major challenges for Europe's less favoured regions.
