Assessing the role of technological districts in regional innovation policies: a network analysis of collaborative R&D projects

As highlighted in systemic approaches to innovation, regions play an increasingly important role in designing and implementing place-based innovation policies. A wide debate has emerged on the limits and validity of different policy models, for example, between “platform” and “district-based” approaches or between a “corporatist” and an “evolutionary” Triple Helix. Within the EU Cohesion Policy framework, a number of technological districts (TDs) have been established since 2005 in the Italian “Convergence” regions to foster competitiveness, innovation, and research industry linkages. TDs have become critical actors in knowledge and technology transfer processes, and a significant amount of funding has been devoted to their development in the National Operational Programme for Research and Competitiveness (PON-R&C). In this work, we use methods drawn from social network analysis to locate TDs within the wider collaboration networks established through the PON-R&C programme. We highlight the specificity of TDs within the general policy and assess their ability to promote organisational and sectoral heterogeneity among project participants. We find that different network architectures coexist under the same policy umbrella and relate this variety to the ideal models identified in the literature.