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Regional Innovation Clusters: A Critical Review
Author(s) -
YU JUNBO,
JACKSON RANDALL
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
growth and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.657
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1468-2257
pISSN - 0017-4815
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2257.2011.00546.x
Subject(s) - promotion (chess) , regional development , regional science , political science , business , sociology , politics , law
In this paper, we present a critical assessment of recent economic development policy directions centered on the concept of regional innovation clusters. We begin by investigating the rationale underlying the Obama administration's promotion of regional innovation clusters (RICs) and their introduction to the policy arena in its Strategy for American Innovation . The connections among RICs and existing research and policies in industry and occupational clusters, regional innovation systems and regional economic development are identified and analyzed to highlight those most critical challenges to conceptualizing and theorizing RICs. While we applaud the long overdue focus of economic development policies on sub‐national regions, we identify several major conceptual shortcomings and programmatic difficulties associated with RICs as a centerpiece for economic development strategies.