Introduction

This book introduces, in the most comprehensive and detailed way yet attempted, the theoretical and empirical construct we call regional innovation systems. The specific concept is new, having been deployed since 1992 (see, for example, Cooke 1992). There is no mention of the terminology, even as late as Hilpert (1991), one of the few collections on the substantive matter in question. As in the discourse of the late 1980s and early 1990s more generally, there is there and in other publications (e.g. Malecki 1991, Bergman et al. 1991) reference to “regional innovation policies” (Antonelli & Momigliano 1981, Cooke 1985), “innovative milieux” (Aydalot 1986, Maillat & Vasserot 1986, Maillat 1991), “regional technology policies” (Rothwell & Dodgson 1991), “regional innovation potential”Meyer-Krahmer 1985) and “innovation networks” (Camagni 1991) as well as “high technology complexes”, “technopoles” and “new technology industries”, upon which much has been written during the period.