Territories and technologies in an unstable knowledge economy : An evolutionary framework of regional resilience
Lead Research Organisation:
Cardiff University
Department Name: Cardiff School of Planning and Geography
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Publications
Bristow G
(2015)
Crisis response, choice and resilience: insights from complexity thinking
in Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society
| Description | This research has significantly enhanced our understanding of key determinants of the resilience of regional economies, meaning their capacity to successfully innovate and adapt to instability in the economic environment. Our principal achievements are as follows: (1) Significant new knowledge in the theory of regional innovation and development. The main aim of our project was to develop an evolutionary framework of regional resilience, allowing us to understand how markets, technologies and territories co-evolve in a highly open and unstable economic environment. We have achieved this through applying Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) thinking to Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) and developing an understanding of regions as complex systems characterised by co-evolutionary dynamics between firms, households, policy-makers and the external economic environment. In short, it has allowed us to develop and extend a relational, interactive perspective on how regional economies adapt and change. In particular, we have developed new insights into two critical aspects of regional economic evolution. The first surrounds the role of knowledge recombination in regional innovation and the creation of new economic pathways. Specifically, we have developed a strengthened understanding of the importance of the cross-pollination of knowledge between firms and sectors. We have established that it is at these knowledge interfaces where new unforeseen innovations can emerge and existing regional development paths co-evolve and mutate to form new development trajectories. The second concerns the role, significance and nature of adaptive behaviour within regional economies in shaping their resilience to shocks and change. We have developed new theorising around adaptive agency in regional economies which has established that social relations between agents are key to how shocks play out and how adaptation occurs. Furthermore we have illuminated the interpretive, co-evolutionary and collective nature of this agency. In short, in complex regional systems, agents behave in a recursive manner, with firms, households and government adapting their behaviour in line with each other and the changing environment. (2) Significant new empirical knowledge created. We have developed new empirical insights into the co-evolutionary adaptations of economic agents within regional economies, as well as into new examples of knowledge recombination and the factors shaping them on the ground. This has particularly highlighted the importance of strong relational capacities amongst regional economic actors and the importance of having regional actors capable of acting as strong nodes in knowledge networks. (3) Important new research questions opened up. New questions have been identified concerning (a) the role of intermediaries and policy-making in the development of nodal targets for firms in order to maximise knowledge recombination and interactive innovation capabilities; and (b) the relationship between micro-level recombinant innovations and macro- (regional-scale) economic resilience. (4) New research networks and collaborations developed. Our ORA collaboration has spawned at least two new research networks and collaborations - one on resilience which has subsequently secured ESPON funding for a study of regional economic resilience, and another on smart specialisation which is part of a wider FP7 project on this theme. |
| Exploitation Route | Our findings will be taken forward by economic geographers interested in understanding regional resilience and regional innovation. We have provided a theoretical framework which is less static and linear to explore the interactive effects and drivers of change within regional economies. This needs further empirical testing with, in particular, a need for (a) more analysis to relate the theoretical propositions developed to detailed analysis of the resilience of regional economies in performance (e.g. output) terms; (b) more cross-comparative empirical testing exploring where and why co-evolutionary adaptive responses to change are more proactive and transformative than simply reactive and responsive, including analysis of the critical networks at play and the factors which enable the development of positive collective mindsets. Our findings might be taken forward in the evolution of policy interventions in support of regional innovation. We have highlighted the importance of developing opportunities for the cross-fertilisation of knowledge across firms and sectors and the role and importance of institutional intermediaries and other key connectors in such networks. |
| Sectors | Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
| Description | Impact is nascent and still developing but policy recommendations concerning the value of developing platform approaches to regional innovation policy has already been picked up by, for example, economic development agencies in Sweden (Vinnova). The work is also shaping the development of smart specialisation approaches to EU regional policy through its development of policy recommendations concerning cross-sectoral innovation across related areas of industrial and technological development. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2011 |
| Sector | Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Re-distributed manufacturing and the resilient city |
| Organisation | University of Bristol |
| Department | Queen's School of Engineering |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | With the Universities of Bath, Exeter and the West of England, we are part of an EPSRC funded network exploring the relationships between re-distributed manufacturing and the resilient city. I am part of the Cardiff team and have been inputting knowledge of the concept of economic resilience, developed through the ESRC ORA project. I have also partned with manufacturing logistics experts from the Cardiff Business School to develop new thinking on how supply chains in the Cardiff Capital Region can influence resilience. This is helping inform the understanding of our partners, most of whom are engineers, as to the relationships between re-distributed manufacturing systems and wider regional economic resilience. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners are providing insights from different disciplinary perspectives, notably from engineering and manufacturing logistics and supply chains. They are also providing valuable knowlegde of the role of new manufacturing technologies and systems in our understanding of the economic resilience of regions. This is providing a fruitful source of new interdisciplinary knowledge exchange. |
| Impact | No outputs or outcomes as yet, although conference papers are in progress. This is a multi-disciplinary collaboration bringing together experts from economic geography, spatial planning, engineering, logistics and transport. |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Resilience network |
| Organisation | Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK Leipzig) |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Cardiff University (through its Centre for Advanced Studies, now Centre of Economic Geography) was a partner in this funded Open Research Area research network and project. This developed a collaborative research project which has spawned further research partnerships for other projects notably an FP7 project on Smart Specialisation (with Utrecht) and a resilience project for ESPON with Leipzig. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaborative research, new research networks and projects. |
| Impact | This collaboration is focused within the discipline of economic geography but has brought together researchers with different methodological approaches and methods (quantitative and qualitative). |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Resilience network |
| Organisation | University of Bordeaux |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Cardiff University (through its Centre for Advanced Studies, now Centre of Economic Geography) was a partner in this funded Open Research Area research network and project. This developed a collaborative research project which has spawned further research partnerships for other projects notably an FP7 project on Smart Specialisation (with Utrecht) and a resilience project for ESPON with Leipzig. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaborative research, new research networks and projects. |
| Impact | This collaboration is focused within the discipline of economic geography but has brought together researchers with different methodological approaches and methods (quantitative and qualitative). |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Resilience network |
| Organisation | University of Toulouse |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Cardiff University (through its Centre for Advanced Studies, now Centre of Economic Geography) was a partner in this funded Open Research Area research network and project. This developed a collaborative research project which has spawned further research partnerships for other projects notably an FP7 project on Smart Specialisation (with Utrecht) and a resilience project for ESPON with Leipzig. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaborative research, new research networks and projects. |
| Impact | This collaboration is focused within the discipline of economic geography but has brought together researchers with different methodological approaches and methods (quantitative and qualitative). |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Resilience network |
| Organisation | Utrecht University |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Cardiff University (through its Centre for Advanced Studies, now Centre of Economic Geography) was a partner in this funded Open Research Area research network and project. This developed a collaborative research project which has spawned further research partnerships for other projects notably an FP7 project on Smart Specialisation (with Utrecht) and a resilience project for ESPON with Leipzig. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaborative research, new research networks and projects. |
| Impact | This collaboration is focused within the discipline of economic geography but has brought together researchers with different methodological approaches and methods (quantitative and qualitative). |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Smart Specialisation collaboration |
| Organisation | Utrecht University |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of a research collaboration taken forward in an FP7 project on smart specialisation |
| Collaborator Contribution | Development of a research collaboration taken forward in an FP7 project on smart specialisation |
| Impact | Collaboration formed part of a larger FP7 collaboration currently examining smart specialisation across Europe. Project in progress. |
| Start Year | 2013 |