Rethinking Clusters

Book excerpt: Research on the topic of clusters and industrial districts is very extensive. However, most of it has focused more on understanding the past than on trying to map out the future. The aim of this book is to fill this gap by identifying and discussing the main research topics that populate the current scientific debate and highlight the emergent lines of research that will constitute the future research agenda. It does so by drawing on the debate started with the "rethinking clusters" workshops, which in a short time have become a rich place for discussion among cluster scholars around the world. Rethinking Clusters: Towards a New Research Agenda for Cluster Research collects contributions from authoritative colleagues, who cover a number of relevant and timely issues, such as the territorial roots of radical innovation processes, new ways of understanding and measuring the role of place in economic development, path renewal, internationalization and entrepreneurship. The final section is devoted to the critical analysis of policies that support smart specialization. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal European Planning Studies.