Global innovation networks and regional dynamics:

What are global innovation networks? How can regional firms get involved in them? And what are the consequences – regionally and globally, for firms and nations? These are some of the questions that will be addressed by professor Cristina Chaminade, who is our first Estrad lecturer in 2017.

She says that globalization has come hand in hand with an increased role played by certain regions in the global economy. Not all regions get access to the global knowledge flows. Research shows that regional variety affects the propensity of firms to engage in global innovation networks, but we know very little about how international knowledge linkages affect regional structural change.

Existing literature tends to either look at the variety of international linkages, or at the variety of regions – not at both. Our knowledge is still very limited when it comes to understanding how firms located in different regions access knowledge across geographical boundaries, which mechanisms they use, and how different knowledge linkages affect the possibilities of introducing regional structural change in different regional innovation systems.

During this lecture, Chaminade will guide us through the empirical evidence on regional-global innovation dynamics. She will explain how regional variety affects – and is affected by – global innovation, and what it means for a country like Sweden.