Technologically advanced regions in Europe, 2007

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Observations for policy

The geography of advanced technology branches is highly concentrated in Europe, although some peripheral regions and regions with capital city regions in the EU12 do play a major role. Furthermore, there is a remarkable concentration of technology, either related to advanced manufacturing or services activities. While specialisation in manufacturing high-tech seems to be much more diffused, specialisation in knowledge intensive services displays impressive territorial concentration rates. It is finally worth stressing that some countries do not have any particular specialisation.

Policy context

Europe 2020 puts a strong focus on smart growth and thus on the knowledge economy and innovation. ESPON research shows that an appropriate translation of the objective of smart growth needs to build on a broader understanding of knowledge economy, including advanced producer services.

To better understand the territorial dimension of the knowledge economy one needs to go beyond the simplified ideas that (a) R&D is equal to knowledge, (b) knowledge economy is synonymous with science, and (c) R&D investments are the right and unique innovation policy measure to support a knowledge economy.

Map interpretation

The map shows the presence of high-tech services and high-tech manufacturing sectors. Technologically advanced regions are regions hosting these sectors at above European average. In total there are 63 technologically advanced regions within the territory covered by the ESPON 2013 Programme. The majority is located in Germany and the UK, smaller concentrations of these regions can be observed in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Sweden. Few are further distributed across Europe. The distribution looks as follows:

Concepts and methods

Technologically advanced regions are defined as those regions, which present simultaneous specialisation in both medium-high and high-tech manufacturing and knowledge intensive services. Deriving from this definition the indicators underlying the map are (a) specialisation in high-tech services, and (b) specialisation in high-tech manufacturing.