Global and Regional Dynamics in Knowledge Flows and Innovation

Book excerpt: Innovation, which in essence is the generation of knowledge and its subsequent application in the marketplace in the form of novel products and processes, has become the key concept in inquiries concerning the contemporary knowledge based economy. Geography plays a decisive role in the underlying processes that enable and support knowledge formation and diffusion activities. Place specific characteristics are considered especially important in this context, however, more recently investigation into innovative capacity of places has also turned its attention to external knowledge inputs through innovation networks, and increasingly recognize the evolutionary character of the processes that lead to knowledge creation and subsequent application in the marketplace. The chapters that comprise this book are embedded at the intersection of the dynamic processes of knowledge production and creative destruction. The first three contributions all discuss the role of global innovation networks, in the context of territorial and/or sectoral dynamics, while the following two chapters investigate the evolution of regional or metropolitan knowledge economies. The final three contributions adopt a knowledge base approach in order to provide insight into the organisation of innovation networks and spatiality of knowledge flows. This book was published in a special issue of European Planning Studies.