The Innovation Development of the European Union: Regional Clustering

Abstract

Innovative development is one of the political priorities of the European Union countries. The Commission of the European Communities recommends that countries pursue innovation policies at the regional level. The regional development of innovations is possible only in conditions of openness. It is important to understand in which conditions the regions will support each other, and in which they will become competitors pulling over limited resources. The strength of mutual influence is determined by economic, technological and geographical distances. In this paper the goal is to understand how patent activity in one region effects the number of patents of other neighboring territories in the European Union regions. The research methodology of this study consists of the calculation of spatial autocorrelation (global and local Moran index I) by the number of patents in 2018-2021 in 169 regions of Europe. Among the regions four groups were identified: innovation cluster centers, innovation agglomerations, the neighbors of innovative cores and the territories outside the influence. The dynamics of development is also analyzed. Among the results, it is shown that most regions of the EU regions have the low level of patent activity. However, in some cases regions form technological clusters (in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands) or pull assets from neighbors to more innovative regions (in France, Austria, Denmark). Moreover, it is obtained that there are potential innovation centers such as Castile-Leon (Spain), Masovian voivodeship (Poland). Understanding the emerging innovation blocs in the European Union will allow to implement more focused and effective policy.