Conceiving Science Policies' Contribution to Regional Development: Evidence From Netherlands and Sweden

A vast amount of attention has been paid last years to science and innovation policies for enhancing regional development. It is more than inarguable today that scientific knowledge has an increasingly crucial role in contemporary societies constituting a driving force in technological, organizational and institutional terms which transcends the underlying socio-economic conditions. In tandem, the critical and inexhaustible significance of the territorial context on knowledge exploration and exploitation, including interplaying institutional and organizational arrangements, are essential parts of theoretical and empirical interpretation. The present paper contributes to the academic literature through the exploration of science policies in two illustrative regional examples, Netherlands (Twente) and Sweden (Skane). Based on empirical and qualitative exploration, the paper explores major features of science policy and addresses questions regarding the multiple transformative socio-economic roles of knowledge institutions with a special emphasis on new emerging governance forms. What is argued in the paper concerns the role of universities and public research institutes to local development which might be multiple and include more than processes of licensing or patenting knowledge results. The certain exploration reveals certain roles on system innovation and associational capacity, collective learning, knowledge-based institutional change.