Politiche territoriali ed ambiente innovativo. I tecnopoli dell'Emilia-Romagna

This dissertation investigates the role of the regions in the field of innovation policies, with particular reference to some innovation organizations, such as science and technology parks, to research parks to technopoles. This research is divided into three parts. The first part is dedicated to the presentation of the systemic innovation approach, based on an in-depth analysis of two lines of study: the National System of Innovation and the Regional System of Innovation. In the latter, two classifications are introduced, one of Brazyck and the other of Cooke, which will be the tool of analysis throughout our readings on the European and international experiences developed in the second part. The analysis consequently moves on to the study of different types of innovation organizations, giving particular attention to definitions and terms, science and technology park, science park, technopoles etc.. In the literature, there is no single definition introduced, therefore, this research work makes reference to definitions emerged from two very detailed studies by Manuel Castell and Peter Hall, “The Technopoles of the World –the making of the 21rst Century Industrial Complexes”, and Butera “Bachi, Crisalidi e farfalle. L’evoluzione dei Parchi scientifici e tecnologici verso reti organizzative autoregolate”. "Bachi, crisalidi e farfalle. The evolution of science and technology parks towards self-regulated organizational networks”. The definition of these terms allowed to delimit the scope of research and at the same time, to acquire a full understanding that is necessary to analyze the European and international innovation organizations . The second part is aimed to analyze international and European cases, selected based on the types of innovation organizations present. At a European level, the cases of the United Kingdom, France and Germany have been selected. The United Kingdom’s approach is highly oriented towards the Regional Innovation Systems, in which development agencies and universities move with particularly dynamism, in giving life to the Science Park. France is historically characterized by central planning, which as testimonial is the dislocation national program of Technopoles. The Poles de Competitivitè, however, introduce a higher level of co-operation with the regional territories and their economic players, universities, enterprises, with an evidenced-based approach to the triple helix. Germany is characterized by a research system divided between the federal and regional level, its structure is very articulated but with strong and welldefined roles and responsibilities such as the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. At the international context and at the Asian front, we chose China and Japan. The former because it shows an increasing attention to innovation and new technologies. The latter because they realized the Technopoles program, which is considered one of the most famous in this field of study. Both experiences show particular commonality for a partial change of the innovative approach that always take a higher regional dimension. Internationally, we studied the case of the United States, with the Silicon Valley and Route 138. We can define them as "the classics", but their inclusion in this research path was particularly significant because they show one of the most representative cases of an innovative environment. The third part commences with an introduction on the national policies on innovation, and provides an overview of the case of innovation poles in Piedmont Region, chosen for their innovative arrangement of enterprises that revolve around a coordinator who organizes for them the demand of research. The research ends with an in-depth analysis of the case study, represented by the founding of the Technopoles Network in the Region of Emilia-Romagna. This analysis covers the whole path implemented by the Region since 2002, and moving along until reaching to today’s constitution of the technopoles. The goal is to study these experiences in light of the analysis carried out on European and international cases. The second objective is to use the analysis of this path to reflect about the current Emilian Regional Innovation Systems and its future related developments.