Elements of incomplete innovative arrangements are identified via the analysis of transformation processes in Germany and Spain. Adjustment of these elements, if complementary to regional context and aligned with existing competences and capabilities, can contribute to completing such arrangements yielding dynamic and continuous modernization processes. Strategic guidance is provided.
Hilpert, Ulrich, Francesco D. Sandulli und Torsten Schunder, 2021. Data Appendix: Towards Sustainable Integration into European Industrial Development: Diversities of Innovative Transformation, Jena, 207 Seiten.
Hilpert, Ulrich, Francesco D. Sandulli und Torsten Schunder, 2021. Towards Sustainable Integration into European Industrial Development: Diversities of Innovative Transformation, Jena, 190 Seiten.
Globalisation and the expansion of the European economic space towards former Eastern Europe has brought along many changes which differ widely between regions and countries. While some were able to prosper due to their modern and highly innovative industries and firms and based on a continuingly improving highly skilled and trained labour force, others linked up with the European division of labour contributing to supply chains based on cheap labour and weak regulations but lacking strong and widespread innovative capabilities and the labour required for modernisation. The latter face competition from within the European Community and from competitors elsewhere based on both even cheaper labour and weaker regulations. Consequently, countries like Spain, face the challenge of transforming their industry and build capabilities while already pressured from competition from the Balkans and countries such as Morocco or Tunisia.
Goal of this project is the creation of an overview of differences and commonalities of the situations of regions in Spain and Germany and the development of an understanding of the possibilities and limits of the transferability of transformation and restructuring experiences and developments. To achieve these goals the following questions are to be addressed:
- Building upon a comparison of the current situation including an observation of the industry and firm structure of German and Spanish regions an understanding of the diversities of innovation context is to be developed;
- Processes of restructuring and transformation are to be identified, analyzed, and abstracted;
- Innovation systems are to be documented to identify and understand potentials of completing innovative arrangements and abstract these findings;
- identify chances of sustainable development and modernization of regions, skills, and products.
The study relies on the comparative analysis of transformation processes in Germany, with a specific focus on East Germany (Saxony, Thuringia), contrasted with select Spanish regions (Andalucía, Basque Country, Catalonia, Madrid) and supplemented by case studies of (incomplete) innovative arrangements to derive abstract elements of complete and incomplete innovative arrangements and their completion processes.
The study contextualizes these transformation processes and case studies with secondary data. Secondary data includes statistical information related to European supply chains, industry structure and composition, demography, R&D and education as well as qualitative information, derived from literature and policy documents, related to policy instruments und subsidy programs, R&D and knowledge transfer institution, education systems, and general development trends.
The analysis of industrial transformation and the Spanish regions shows the need for short term activities coping with current effects and long-term strategies to allow for a sustainable industrial future. Although the Spanish regions face the need for transformation the individual situations of the regions are diverse and demand for specific strategies of modernisation. Acknowledging the diversities of innovation and the identification of incomplete innovative arrangements and strategic questions allows for rethinking modernization of regions which are usually not a focus of discussion. There are potentials for processes of modernization and higher values added, which are not associated with existing concentrations in a few metropolises as innovation and transformation start with regionally existing situations and the opportunities these provide. Existing competences in areas which were considered to be outdated can become critical and fundamental when matched with new knowledge or equipment or supported by new intermediaries from within the region or external sources completing such incomplete innovative arrangements fostering dynamic and continuous modernization processes.
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hilpert
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena Fakultät für Sozial- und Verhaltenswissenschaften
Lehrstuhl für vergleichende Regierungslehre
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