ABSTRACT
The national innovation system (NIS) concept conveys the idea that innovations occur in specific conditions related to the production, education and R&D systems of national economies.2 The national character of the innovation system is able to create competitive advantages for firms located inside the geographical space under consideration. The NIS stresses the importance of the linkages that are woven between the different economic actors located within national space, taking into account the whole set of human and physical resources, legal and administrative infrastructure, as well as state intervention principally through financing R&D activities. Some authors have proposed to reduce the geographical dimension of the space from a national scale to a subnational one. They have thus introduced the notion of the regional innovation system (RIS) as the subnational analogue of the national innovation system (NIS). The RIS raises several methodological problems. First, is there a “competitive advantage” among regions?3 Taking into account the evolution of subnational spaces as economic entities interacting with the international economy is a relatively new analytical question. Usually the national economy is a filter through which the economist tries to evaluate the phenomena related to the openness of the economy to the international markets. Thus, the adjustments observed on the national level are aggregate responses containing intrasectoral or intersectoral adjustments taking place inside enterprises located in the different regions of the national space (see Krugman 1991). The question is to assess the ability of an
RIS, as a set of economic and social structures, to integrate itself successfully with the international economy. Secondly, Marshall (1919) had proposed more than a century ago the idea of the “industrial district”, to explain the competitive advantages of firms located in particular areas. The sources of these advantages were located in the “external economies” that were supposed to be “internalized” by the firms in the “atmosphere” of these districts. But, with the improvement of communication networks and the globalization of markets, can these “districts” be restricted to geographical areas? Thirdly, if these effects survive despite globalization, is there a chance that they should be restricted inside administratively defined regions? To assess the importance of an RIS, it would be necessary to scrutinize whether the human skills, the production lines, the organization of R&D, the financing of innovation, the industrial relations and the administrative structures fit each other in some regions so that they result in economic advantages. The industry in the Midi-Pyrénées region exhibits very special features. The importance of the aeronautics and space industries implies a large R&D sector. The challenge of the RIS is to prove its ability to grow by itself. Focusing on the regional scale may in any case help to improve understanding of the linkages between the different economic actors. Moreover, this knowledge can be useful for the policy-makers, because of the more precise insight thus obtained.
