Correspondence: e.vanino@sheffield.ac.uk

Summary of the Session’s Theme and Objectives

A vast body of literature has examined the role of various public policy tools in stimulating private R&D investment and innovation (RDI). However, concerns persist that many of these instruments primarily follow a “picking-the-winner” strategy—targeting and supporting businesses and regions already rich in R&D activities. This approach risks reinforcing a vicious cycle, widening productivity and innovation gaps between industry leaders and laggards, and exacerbating regional inequalities.
Moreover, much of the existing research has focused on the direct relationship between public R&D incentives and private firms’ innovation investment or overall innovation output. Yet, public support for RDI can have broader, far-reaching effects, both direct and indirect. These include fostering new knowledge networks, facilitating inventor mobility, strengthening innovation systems, and more generally, driving the diffusion and recombination of ideas—often through spatial mechanisms that remain underexplored.
Given these dynamics, further research is essential to deepen our understanding of how public RDI support influences R&D investment, innovation, knowledge diffusion, recombination, and technological adoption across regions. Insights from such research will inform more effective policies that enhance knowledge spillovers between public and private R&D organizations, stimulate broader innovation, and provide better-targeted support for small and low-tech businesses in lagging regions.

List of Topics to Be Presented in the Special Session

This special session welcomes contributions related, but not limited, to the following topics:

• Evaluation of public RDI policies in fostering regional technological diversification, innovation adoption, and knowledge diffusion;
• The impact of public research grants on the geography of innovation;
• Public RDI and its role in shaping inventor mobility;
• Public RDI support for underdeveloped regions;
• Innovation subsidies and their influence on knowledge networks;
• The role of public policies in shaping regional innovation systems (missions, R&D expenditures, public R&D institutions);
• Knowledge externalities arising from public science systems.

Key References

Balland, P. A., Boschma, R., & Frenken, K. (2014). Proximity and Innovation: From Statics to Dynamics. Regional Studies, 49(6), 907–920.

Bloom, N., Van Reenen, J. and Williams, H. (2019). A Toolkit of Policies to Promote Innovation. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33 (3), 163–84.

Gruber, J., Johnson, S., & Moretti, E. (2023). Place-Based Productivity and Costs in Science. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, 2(1), 167-184.

Mewes, L., & Broekel, T. (2020). Subsidized to change? The impact of R&D policy on regional technological diversification. The Annals of Regional Science, 65(1), 221-252.

Neffke F., Hartog M., Henning M., & Boschma R. (2018). Agents of structural change: The role of firms and entrepreneurs in regional diversification. Economic Geography 94 (1), 23-48.

Neffke, F., Henning, M., & Boschma, R. (2011). How do regions diversify over time? Industry relatedness and the development of new growth paths in regions. Economic Geography, 87(3), 237-265.

OECD (2013). Regions and Innovation: Collaborating across Borders. OECD Reviews of Regional Innovation, OECD Publishing.

Uhlbach, W. H., Balland, P. A., & Scherngell, T. (2022). Public R&D funding and new regional specialisations: The contingent role of technological relatedness. Industry and Innovation, 29(4), 511-532.