To Örebro University

The downscaling of environmental responsibilities poses new challenges for regional governments, necessitating an evolution in their roles to manage environmental policy alongside traditional local development duties. This paper draws on the concept of the entrepreneurial state and on the idea of the 'entrepreneurial region' to explore how local and regional governments implement bioeconomy policies and strategies, highlighting governance dynamics and assessing institutional capacity limitations in achieving sustainability outcomes. Our study focuses on the bioeconomy strategies in Lapland (Finland) and V & auml;sternorrland (Sweden), two sparsely populated, resource-rich northern regions where the bioeconomy is integral to regional development policies. We utilised qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, policy documents and relevant reports to address two key questions: How can we better understand the role of local and regional governments in regional bioeconomy strategies, and what implications do institutional capacity constraints have for sustainability outcomes? Findings indicate that the ability of regions to act 'entrepreneurially' is heavily reliant on the availability of competences, resources and vision. The notion of the entrepreneurial region illustrates that regional governments are increasingly expected to fulfil roles as coordinators, economic agents, market enablers and innovators, all of which necessitate significant institutional capacity. Although these roles foster opportunities for place-based innovation and bioeconomy advancement, they also expose tensions between mission-oriented goals and market-driven demands. Furthermore, uneven institutional capacities, fragmented governance structures and limited resources hinder the transformative potential of regional strategies.

The continued reliance on cars presents a challenge for sustainable mobility policy. A wide range of approaches exists to address this issue, from promoting more sustainable vehicle options to replacing cars altogether. However, national sustainable mobility policies related to car use often suffer from spatial blindness - which implies a limited contextual differentiation based on the specific characteristics of the area in which they are implemented. Enhancing policy differentiation may improve policy effectiveness. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the literature on sustainable mobility policies and explore practical approaches to achieving greater policy differentiation, using Sweden as a pilot case. Our findings suggest that existing sustainable mobility policies, typically based on a common urban-rural distinction, can be adapted to a spatially differentiated spectrum that considers variations in population density. This study contributes a practice-oriented perspective to the discussion on policy differentiation, articulated through a policy model that integrates quantitative analysis and a literature review. Additionally, it provides a review of potential sustainable mobility policy measures and examines their applicability across different spatial contexts.

Since the late 1980s, there has been no explicit regional policy in Canada. Indirectly, though, equalization payments, industrial policies, as well as regional agencies encouraging the adoption of federal industrial and innovation policies, impact regional economies. In 2017, the federal government appeared to alter its approach: the Supercluster initiative was announced, drawing upon the idea that localized networks of interrelated firms can generate innovation and local development. In this paper, we discuss the mechanisms through which spatially focused industrial innovation policy can lead to regional development. We then focus on Canada's Ocean Supercluster initiative. The question we address is as follows: to what extent can this initiative (and, more widely, Canada's Supercluster policy) be understood as a regional development strategy driven by a coherent rationale for regional intervention? Apart from the fact that each Supercluster focuses on a pre-existing core of firms located within a region, there is little evidence that the Supercluster initiative has regional development objectives or impacts.

The Global Innovation Clusters' Initiative (GIC) is an innovation program launched in Canada. This article aims to describe the policy, in particular its key similarities and differences with the Europe's Smart Specialisation (S3) policy initiative, and critically explore the logic behind its inception. The article reveals that although policy implementation practices are bespoke and context-specific, the need to increase coordination between different levels and sectors of policy making is acknowledged to be important for achieving both innovation and local economic development objectives.

L'Initiative des Grappes d'innovation mondiales (GIC) est un programme d'innovation lance au Canada. Le but de cet article est de decrire ses politiques-particulierement ses principales similitudes et differences avec l'initiative politique de specialisation intelligente de l'Europe (S3)-ainsi que d'examiner d'un & OELIG;il critique la logique derriere sa creation. En conclusion, quoique les pratiques de mise en & OELIG;uvre des politiques soient sur mesure et contextuelles, la necessite d'accroitre la coordination entre les differents niveaux et secteurs de l'elaboration des politiques est reconnue comme importante pour atteindre a la fois les objectifs d'innovation et de developpement economique local.

This short paper serves as an introduction to the special issue published in Geografiska Annaler B on the topic of innovation in the periphery. In addition to summarizing the main contributions included within the special issue, this piece reflects on the current state of knowledge in this sub-field and where the gaps are that need to be filled by research going forwards. This collection represents one step in this direction and pushes forward an interdisciplinary and varied approach to studying innovation in the periphery. There are three particular themes relating to innovation in the periphery that this piece picks up: defining peripheries, beyond technological innovation in the periphery and discourses of crisis in the periphery. It finishes with some suggestions for a roadmap, looking forward as to what the future of research in the periphery might be.

This article contributes to the debate on the interaction between rural firms and KIBS, developing a theoretically grounded set of arguments to understand what types of rural firm value KIBS's contributions to their innovation strategies. Using a dataset of 174 rural and small-town firms in the province of Quebec, our results show that KIBS are a valued innovation source for two groups of rural firms: firms that implement external STI learning modes, and firms that are slow innovators (relying on more technical, slow-decay, knowledge as opposed to short-term market information). Furthermore, it is firms in the remotest rural areas that most value the contribution of KIBS to innovation. Our findings suggest that in rural areas, KIBS are most valued by firms that face more (geographic) hurdles to access them, and by firms which target their KIBS interactions in strategic ways and which rely on more technical knowledge.

This paper considers the unfolding of Smart Specialisation Strategy (RIS3) in one of Europe's innovation-leading metropolitan regions: Stockholm, Sweden. Theoretically, it contributes to debates around change agency and reflects more broadly, which implications arise for metropolitan innovation-leader regions and which are of more generic nature. It argues that actor endowments, dense networks, experience with participatory governance processes and good governance are not sufficient for a successful implementation of RIS3. It finds that transformative regional innovation policy is contingent upon the adequate empowerment of change agents rather than on general regional preconditions.

In this paper we consider the experience of implementing the Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3) in three regions in Finland, Norway and Denmark. We highlight the challenges each of these 'strong innovator' regions has faced in implementing S3. We elucidate the fact that each region faced different challenges when implementing S3. We extend a discussion around place-based policy, which is designed in a regionally bespoke and bottom-up manner, suggesting that this will inherently throw up unique and variable place-based challenges, questioning how to balance this uniqueness of problems with a universally applicable approach and support infrastructure.

This paper unpacks the relational processes that shape industrial developments in rural settings and offers a springboard for reflecting upon rural clusters as social constructs that result from a complex and dynamic pro-cess, which is a subject to constant change. To identify and map different types of social ties as well as analyze their role in different phases of bio-cluster development, the paper proposes an analytical framework that combines the function of social ties (bonding, bridging and linking) with aspects of geographical and organised proximity. A 'critical case' design has been employed to operationalize the analytical framework proposed and test its suitability for grasping and explaining real-life phenomena. This 'critical case' illustrates the long and winding relational routes collegially taken by local entrepreneurs in bringing together what eventually became a rural cluster.