Clusters and Regional Development

by Bjørn T. Asheim (Editor), Philip Cooke (Editor), Ron Martin (Editor)

Using international examples, leading scholars present the first critical analysis of cluster theory, assessing the cluster notion and drawing out, not only its undoubted strengths and attractions, but also its weaknesses and limitations.

Over the past decade the cluster model has been seized on as a tool for promoting competitiveness, innovation and growth on local, regional and national scales. However, despite its popularity there is much about it that is problematic, and in some respects the rush to employ cluster ideas has run ahead of many fundamental conceptual, theoretical and empirical questions.

Addressing key questions on the nature, use and effectiveness of cluster models, Clusters and Regional Development provides the missing thorough theoretical and empirical evaluation.

318 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2006

About the author

Professor Bjørn Terje Asheim has since 2001 the chair in economic geography at the Department of Social and Economic Geography, University of Lund, Sweden, and is co-founder and deputy director of the new Centre of Excellence in innovation system research at Lund University called CIRCLE (Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy) from 2004. He is also part time professor at the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo, Norway, since 2001. He was previously full professor in human geography at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo (1993-99) and at the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo (1999-2001). He has also for many years been associated with the Research Council funded STEP-group (Studies in technology, innovation and economic policy) in Oslo as a part time senior researcher and scientific advisor (1994-2001). He has been head of the Department of Human Geography (1989-1994), and has had positions in national and international professional committees within economic and human geography, e.g. as the vice-chair in the International Geographical Union Study Group on Local Development. He was a member of the steering committee of the research programme “Enterprise Development 2000” in the Norwegian Research Council, and is now member of the steering committee for the new programme on “Value Creation 2010”. He is member of several program committees at VINNOVA (Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems), one of them being the program committee on learning and sustainable working life. He has also been member of the executive committee of the Oslo Summer School in Comparative Social Science Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo (1993-2001). He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Centre for European Studies on Territorial Development, University of Durham, UK, and of the international advisory committee for the Canadian Innovation Systems Research Network and MCRI Clusters project. He is Editor of Economic Geography and Regional Studies, and member of the editorial board of several European scientific journals including European Planning Studies and Journal of Economic Geography. He has served as an international expert for UNCTAD, OECD (mission to Scottish Enterprise in 2002) and EU/DG XVI and Research (rapporteur in Expert Group on ‘Creating Regional Advantage 2004-2005).

Professor Asheim is trained as both a business economist (MSc, The Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen) and a human geographer (PhD, University of Lund, Sweden). He is well-known internationally for his research in the areas of economic and industrial geography, where his main research specialisations include: Comparative analyses of industrial districts and regional clusters; SMEs and innovation policy; technological change, globalisation and endogenous regional development; regional innovation systems and learning regions. He was coordinator of a EU/TSER project on “SME Policy and the Regional Dimension of Innovation” (2000), and ongoing research includes a European Science Foundation (ESF)/Swedish Research Council project on ‘Technology, talent and tolerance’, which he also coordinates, with participation from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, UK, Germany and the Netherlands; and CIRCLE projects on comparing regional innovation systems in Canada and the Nordic countries. He is also participating in two biotech projects; one in the Øresund region and one comparative European funded by European Science Foundation/Swedish Research Council, with participation from Sweden, Finland, UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland, and he was in charge of a newly completed Nordic comparative project on SMEs and regional innovation systems. He has also been involved in projects for the Norwegian Research Council on globalisation, where he initiated and was the director of a large interdiscipl