ABSTRACT
How can a national border move from being a barrier to innovation to a source of innovation? This question puzzled politicians and firms in Sweden and Norway in the early 2000s. The border had been open since the 1950s, but with few reports on cross-border interaction between firms and research institutions. With the support of Interreg, a partnership was established focusing resources on both sides of the border under two topics. The first was learning and innovation within the emerging green industries supporting environmentally sustainable development, with a focus on solar energy, waste reduction, and wood-based construction. The second was tourism, since there was extensive tourism business on both sides of the border and a belief that they could become stronger by working together. This chapter analyses the two cases of cross-border innovation. The border area is a mostly rural area with a lack of knowledge providers close to the border. Knowledge was instrumental in overcoming obstacles to innovation, including the border itself, distance, and institutional thinness. Some successes can be reported concerning both cases, while other obstacles are persistent and a new one, Covid-19, has entered the border area.
