What policies, initiatives or programmes can support attracting, embedding and reshaping Global Value Chains in regions?

This paper outlines the regional industrial policies most conducive to GVC reshaping and emergence, on the basis of an analysis of concrete experiences in regions in the OECD countries and outside. It starts by examining the current changes in the competitive context of industries, namely the new phase of globalisation together with the fourth industrial revolution, to outline the implied structural changes most likely in GVCs, and some already occurring. This is useful to define the most appropriate industrial policies at regional level, that are confronted with some successful concrete experiences in regions. Overall, what emerges is that policies should aim at developing productive capabilities as already stressed in the literature, but also networking different specialisations in order to exploit complementarities, both within and outside regions. The governance of the policy process is also important, and has to be participative, and policy coherence is another feature that we stress as essential in times of deep and complex structural changes not only in the economy, but also in the society and culture.