ABSTRACT

Recent figures on the spatial distribution of educated workers clearly show that three main trends are currently taking place in European regions. These are:

a growing regional concentration of an educated labour force in a few hotspots (Islands) of innovation (Hilpert 1992; Zucker and Darby 2007);

a growing probability for individuals within each region to meet people with different levels of education (Caragliu and Nijkamp 2012);

a rising accessibility in terms of knowledge and information through virtual networks between geographically disjoint areas (Tranos et al. 2011).