Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

The knowledge economy appears to be problematic for old industrial regions, as lock-in and restructuring remove assets for innovation from their territories, as well as for the kinds of policy which can stimulate their economies. In this paper we explore whether universities can provide points of stability within which such locked-in regions can strengthen their innovation systems and attract external investment in knowledge capital. Using the case study of Twente in the eastern Netherlands, we explore whether universities can strengthen their regional innovation systems. We distinguish local networking from external-investment attraction to show that universities can become temporary venues for ‘local buzz’, building networks which become attractive to outside investors and promoting regional innovation. This suggests that an alternative approach to regional innovation policy, which we term ‘promoting smart hybridity’, may be useful in stimulating growth-based restructuring in such regions.

The increased popularity of and attention paid to innovation-based regional growth and development has, among other things, raised the importance of universities in regional innovation systems (RIS). The triple-helix literature especially underscores the value of increased interaction and interdependence between universities, industry, and government in modern, knowledge-based, economies by acclaiming the rise of the entrepreneurial. The author provides a comparative analysis of the RIS problems in the North East in the United Kingdom and Scania in Sweden and the role of universities in regional innovation policies addressing these problems. The results of this comparison question a one-size-fits-all (entrepreneurial) model to harness university-based knowledge resources for regional development. Instead, it is shown that various constellations are possible dependent on the characteristics of the RIS problems.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are not only the rising actors of the knowledge-based economy—they are also among the concrete physical structures taking part in the transformation of cities. As large physical constructions, they have the potential to affect urban form. Moreover, HEIs have also begun to act as developers and their locations have become a matter of concern for local politics. In the global era, there are a number of driving forces in the restructuring and location patterns of the HEIs in cities. The nonprofit – private foundation universities (FUs) that were introduced into the Turkish higher education (HE) system in the past decade, and in particular Koç University (KU), illustrate these issues clearly. Possible relations between globalisation and HE are presented with reference to the restructuring of the HEIs. This is related to the desire to locate at the nodes of global flows. The location of the FUs in Istanbul, Turkey, and in particular of KU, is the focus. The motivation of the actors in the process is assessed in relation to the theoretical issues. The authors present the growth coalition and local opposition that were significant in the decision-making process relating to KU.

This paper examines the characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) involved in the agricultural biotechnology (agro-bio) sector. Specific objectives are to understand firm-specific strategies utilized to remain competitive in an uncertain business environment, and to examine the impact of government/policy and farmers on strategies. The controversial nature of processes used and the ethical debate surrounding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) contribute to an ongoing struggle for these firms in negotiating their position in society as innovators. Data from surveys of US-based firms and farmers are used to show how firms respond to external conditions and how farmers adjust to the GMO controversy, and, in turn, affect the business of biotech. At first cut, the data suggest that firms are worried only about science; as the survey probes into firm-level evaluation of external actors, the importance of Federal over local – regional initiatives stand out. While states are investing to promote biotechnology clusters, the lack of perceived importance of state/local level efforts to innovators is of particular significance. The discussion also notes the disconnect between policymakers and SMEs. Farmers point out the indirect effect of public opinion in sustaining the business of agro-bio. This study raises questions about gaps in our understanding of the relationship among firms (innovators), users (farmers who are the traditional innovators), and the government (regulator – facilitator) in the agro-bio subsector of the biotech industry. The need to engage other partners (food companies, wholesalers, retailers, consumer groups) in understanding the prospect of agro-bio is evident.

The author addresses the recent proliferation of cross-border regions, or ‘Euroregions’, in Europe. It is argued that EU multilevel governance patterns generate opportunities for entrepreneurial policy organisations to attract policy tasks and resources. This is conceptualised as policy entrepreneurship and applied to a comparative case-study analysis of three Euroregions: EUREGIO (Germany – Netherlands), Viadrina (Poland – Germany), and Tyrol Euroregion (Austria – Italy). The analysis focuses on the ability of these initiatives to establish themselves as autonomous organisations. It finds considerable variation across the cases in this respect. Following on from this, the paper shows how administrative and institutional environments in different EU member states affect the ability of Euroregions to engage in policy entrepreneurship. It is concluded that it is premature to perceive Euroregions as new types of regional territorial entities; rather, they are part of the policy-innovation scenario enabled by EU multilevel governance.

Since various crises concerning food safety in the European Union (EU), institutional reforms have been designed to regain public confidence in regulatory decisions and their expert basis. By Europeanising advisory expertise, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was also intended to help harmonise ‘science-based regulation’ and thus facilitate EU decisions. In evaluating agri-biotech products during 2003 – 05, however, the EFSA procedure extended previous expert disagreements rather than overcome them. The EFSA was designed to demonstrate that expert advice would be ‘independent, objective, and transparent’; yet tensions arose between expert experience versus independence, between transparency versus objectivity, and between harmonisation versus precaution. These conflicts have been shaped by the dominant problem diagnosis, which favours a narrow expert consensus within a specific policy view. Alternative problem diagnoses suggest that expertise should instead be pluralised, so that norms and uncertainties become more explicit. Pressure for EU reform manifests tensions between the dominant and alternative problem diagnoses.

Do the poorest neighbourhoods receive the poorest environmental services? This paper explores whether local environmental service provision in the UK achieves ‘territorial justice’ with respect to deprived and nondeprived neighbourhoods within cities. Territorial justice is argued to pertain when the distribution of service provision to neighbourhoods reflects levels of need for the service. Focusing on the provision of street-level environmental services in four British local authorities, the paper shows that poor and better-off neighbourhoods have different levels of need for environmental services. It then examines whether the services provided are commensurate with variations in need, using observed cleanliness levels within the neighbourhoods to assess this. The author argues that—despite an increasing policy and practice focus on targeting public services towards deprived neighbourhoods in the UK—environmental service provision does not yet take full account of the complex needs of poor places, meaning that they tend to be dirtier than their more affluent counterparts.

Scottish citizens enjoy 25% more spending per head on public services than English citizens, but almost nothing is known about the countries' relative needs and hence about how far this gap is defensible. We explore their spending needs for local authority services, which cover over half the spending concerned. We first compare needs for local personal social services. To do so, we take the complex formulae with which the Westminster government assesses the needs of English local authorities, and we use these formulae to assess the needs of Scottish local authorities. The formulae suggest that Scotland needs 15.3% more per head than does England. We then combine these results with those of two earlier papers exploring other local services to show that the English formulae put Scotland's per capita needs for local authority services as a whole at about 6% above England's. However, we also compare the relative needs of Scottish local authorities as assessed by the English formulae with their relative needs as assessed by the Scottish needs formulae currently used by Holyrood, and we find major differences. This suggests either that at least one country assesses needs with seriously flawed formulae, or that the two countries have different conceptions of need.