Regions need to tailor their own place-based policies because there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ regional innovation policy framework. Each region is characterized by different institutional capacities related to political, economic and social contexts enabling or constraining the design and implementation of place-based policies. This paper uses an instrumental-use multiple case study approach to explore the design and implementation of place-based policies within the institutional arrangements of four regional innovation agencies (RIAs) established in three different regional contexts inside and outside the European Union: one in the Brainport region (the Netherlands), two in the Basque Country (Spain) and one in Medellín (Colombia). In analyzing the RIAs’ similarities and differences, this paper explores the complexity of designing and implementing place-based innovation policies in different regional innovation systems (RISs) while noting important policy implications for regional innovation governance and institutional arrangements to upgrade RIS in a more systematic manner.

Innovation districts are emerging as place-based, knowledge-based urban development strategies in diverse cities around the world. They have, however, been criticized for being non-participative top-down initiatives that encourage gentrification and income, social, and racial polarization. In 2015, Mayor Berke launched Chattanooga’s Innovation District in the city’s downtown to accelerate the transformation of Chattanooga into a knowledge city. This paper investigates the programs that are being implemented in order to mitigate the negative externalities that such a strategy can generate. Using Chattanooga as an exploratory case, the authors argue that gentrification in innovation districts can increase knowledge spillovers.

In the knowledge economy, the rise of new social environments is blurring the conventional separation between the first place (home), the second place (work), and the third place. The paper aims to construct a typology of places in the knowledge economy. The research methodology is based on an exploratory case study approach investigating the social environments in Paris (France) that don’t fit in the traditional typology of places. The paper finds that the new social environments in the knowledge city can combine elements of the first and second place (coliving); of the second and third place (coworking); and of the first and third place (comingling). Furthermore, the combination of elements of the first, second, and third place in new social environments implies the emergence of a new place, the fourth place. The paper contributes to understand how the knowledge economy is changing the nature of places in the global post-industrial city.

The growing interest in addressing societal challenges is changing research and innovation policy dynamics. However, a challenge-oriented approach requires specific public sector capacities to coordinate and provide directionality, while having an innovation ecosystem with sufficient scientific and technological capabilities to address the grand societal challenges effectively. From this perspective, a challenge-oriented policy is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and the literature has only recently started investigating the territorial differences. The current paper proposes a composite index to assess REgional Societal Challenges-Oriented REadiness (RE-SCORE). An exploratory experimental application is conducted to examine and compare Italian regions facing four selected societal challenges (SCs): bioeconomy, climate change, health and inclusive, innovative and reflective societies. The findings show that the Italian regional readiness to address SCs is highly heterogeneous, going beyond the ‘traditional’ North-South divide. The index allows us to benchmark regional capacities for comparative analysis and to identify possible interregional synergies around specific SCs. This approach could be used in other European countries and at the European level to assess the regional readiness to tackle SCs.

The literature in economic geography is increasingly interested in the role of human agency in local and regional development. The understanding of the role of agents of change on path development is especially critical for small- and medium-sized towns (SMSTs), which tend to be less diversified and to have fewer localised capabilities. The town of Vierzon in the Centre-Val-de-Loire region in France is a medium-sized old industrial town in a structural crisis. It is suffering from deindustrialisation, population decline, unemployment and poverty. This article takes a micro-perspective with a case study approach to explore the creation and growth of Ledger – a frontier blockchain start-up that designs, produces and commercialises hardware wallets for cryptocurrencies – against all odds in Vierzon, France. It underlines the role of a Window of Locational Opportunity, agency, chance, the broader institutional context in the location of Ledger in an unlikely place and subsequent unrelated diversification and path creation. It contributes to the debate on the interplay between agency and structure by linking agents of change in SMSTs to the broader institutional context and to the understanding of the emergence of place-based leadership.

The literature on path development is increasingly concerned with providing targeted policy recommendations for different regional innovation systems. This paper examines the case of Ruta N, a regional innovation agency operating on the knowledge periphery in Medellin, Colombia. The municipally owned intermediary organization Ruta N stimulates new industrial path development by facilitating the acquisition, diffusion and absorption of extra-regional knowledge within the regional innovation system. To do so, Ruta N acts as a knowledge gatekeeper, engaging in the ‘tropicalization’ of extra-regional knowledge to facilitate its absorption. Its experience is indicative of one possible path connecting local elites with international leaders, increasing absorptive capacity, and facilitating knowledge transfer.