First Published in 1999

The process of globalization is shaped and reinforced by a rapidly changing knowledge environment. As economies become less constrained by national frontiers, they become more geographically specialized. Thus, important elements of the innovation process tend to become regional rather than national.

In this new environment, large corporations are weakening their links with their home country, spreading their innovation activities to source different regional systems of innovation. Regional networks of firms are creating new forms of learning and production.

The aim of this book is to broaden, both conceptually and empirically, the ''national systems of innovation'' approach, developed by Lundvall, Freeman, Nelson, and others. While recognizing the creative nature of economic adjustment in a turbulent world and the highly uneven distribution of economic growth, the national systems approach lacks a mechanism by which to understand innovation when the realistic unit of analysis is no longer the nation state.

Written by leading scholars in the field, this book provides a ground-breaking examination of sub-regional systems of innovation in an interconnected global economy.