ABSTRACT
The rising importance of firms that are highly focused on research, where invention is a fundamental objective, poses new challenges to regional development policy. Such enterprises may be referred to as experimental firms, given their overarching emphasis on invention and innovation, their high reliance on external networks, their fluid internal organization, their need for multidisciplinary research talents, and the fundamental importance of sustaining a continuous stream of new discoveries. The best examples of these organizations can be found in the most research-intensive activities of our time, in such fields as biotechnology, software design, bioinformatics, nanotechnology, or biorobotics.
