METHODOLOGICAL DEBATE ON THE ‘REGIONAL INNOVATION SCOREBOARD’.
METHODOLOGICAL DEBATE ON THE ‘REGIONAL INNOVATION SCOREBOARD’.
A robust RIS ranking has been provided from the first of the perspectives considered in this report. Such a robust ranking is based on assigning different weights to the indicators included in the RIS, thus providing a measure- ment of the likelihood of significant differences between the RIS indices of two regions. In order to produce a robust ranking, this logic requires us to uniquely adopt the perspective of each European region, as each region will have (a) a series of regions with a significantly higher RIS; (b) a series of regions with a sig- nificantly lower RIS; and (c) a series of regions that do not differ significantly from the region in question. An important problem with this RIS ranking robust estimation is that it does not induce a unique order among regions, since the positions are always established from the perspective of each of the regions. In the ab - sence of a unique order, in this study we have, in order to provide a robust ranking, chosen to calculate the number of regions with a signifi - cantly higher RIS for each one. Table 14 shows a notable improvement in the performance of regional innovation systems in Spain in all cas- es when comparing the ranking offered by the European Commission for each Spanish region with the robust ranking estimated in this study. Even with this robust ranking, most Spanish regions continue to occupy middle or low positions at European level, which shows that the regional systems in most Spanish regions have low innovation capacity and require public policies in order to improve. As shown in the literature (Edquist et al., 2018; Zabala-Iturriagagoitia et al., 2021), simply increasing the innovation capacity of a system does not necessarily imply that its efficiency will also improve. Moreover, studies carried out on a national scale (e.g. Barbero et al., 2021) show four different patterns as a function of these two dimensions: (a) countries with high innovation capacity but low innovation per- formance; (b) countries with low innovation capacity and high innovation performance; (c) countries with low innovation capacity and low innovation performance; and (d) countries with
the systemic nature of the innovation process, these results show that there are other factors in the system that impede greater returns from these inputs, making it necessary to advance in comprehensively developing the system. This recommendation makes a lot of sense in light of some policy guidelines that are obsessed with increasing expenditure (particularly R&D), without taking into account other important factors in the innovation process, such as the system’s capacity for interaction. The output perspective complements the information on the low return on inputs dis- cussed above. The results show that the efficient regions with a similar level of inputs to the Spanish regions have a significantly higher output, especially in the production of industrial designs and product and process innovations. The last analysis performed identifies those bottlenecks that constrain performance of the entire system. While prior analysis aims to offer political administrators decisions that would make their respective innovation sys- tems perform more efficiently, the results of the bottleneck analysis focus on making these systems perform more effectively. The results show that the main bottleneck for the Span- ish regions is low business expenditure on R&D, followed by low technological innovation (process and product innovation) in the SME s. These results have direct implications for pub- lic action, as they provide public decision-mak- ers with factors that limit performance of the entire system. The analysis shows that the lack of relationships in the innovation system plac- es a constraint on performance in some Span- ish regions. This is mainly the case in Madrid Region, Catalonia, Valencia Region, the Balearic Islands, and Murcia. In these cases, systemic policies are required to enhance the interaction capacity required by such systems. The literature on public policy evaluation agrees on the need to combine different approaches, methodologies and indicators to avoid biased evaluations of policy performance
high innovation capacity and high innovation performance. In other words, the relationship between innovation capacity and performance is not linear. The efficiency perspective developed in this study shows that there is a series of Spanish regions with high performance (Balearic Is- lands, La Rioja, Valencia, Catalonia and Mur- cia), a series of Spanish regions with interme- diate performance (Aragon, Madrid, Cantabria, Castile-La Mancha and Extremadura), and another group with low performance (Asturias, Andalusia, Galicia, Basque Country, Navarre and Castile-León). Apart from obtaining an efficiency-based ranking of European regions, the analysis is also useful in identifying the main sources of inefficiency for each regional innovation system. This inefficiency can be due to either an excess of inputs or a shortage of outputs. Input inefficiency indicates that re - gions with an output level similar to that of the region under study tend to invest substantially less in this area. If a region has input inefficien - cy, policies should therefore be reoriented by reallocating resources to activities that support innovation, reducing resources in those areas that are overspent and redirecting them where greater dedication is required. Output ineffi - ciency indicates that regions with a similar lev- el of input as the region under study are able to obtain substantially better results for the same level of input investment. In such cases, poli - cies should therefore be reoriented to increase the production of certain innovation results. Table 15 identifies the main sources of inef - ficiency for both inputs and outputs for the Spanish regions as a whole. In terms of inputs, the low return on innovation expenditure in most Spanish regions is particularly striking when compared to European regions with similar outputs. Naturally, the message behind this analysis is not that the Spanish regions should reduce their expenditure on innovation and business R&D, since, as discussed above, increasing capacity in regional innovation sys- tems in Spain is absolutely imperative. Given
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