Multinational corporations and the UK regional systems of innovation *

Despite the highly internationalised nature of the UK economy and the globalised character of the research carried out in the country (as well as outside it by UK firms) – as already pointed out in Chapter 4 – somehow surprisingly little is known at the regional level with respect to the geographical dispersion of technological activities within the country, despite this dispersion's undoubted influence upon inter-regional growth rates across sectors. ¹