Spatial spillovers and European Union regional innovation activities

This paper explores the role of spatial spillovers in the innovation processes across 245 NUTS 2 European Union (EU) regions for the 2008-2012 period. The patent applications at the European Patent Office were chosen as a proxy for innovative activity. In the first step of the empirical analysis, the spatial pattern examination of the innovative activity based on the selected global and local indicators for spatial association confirmed the presence of a spatial dependence process in the distribution of innovative activity. Next, we attempted to model the behaviour of innovative activity at the EU regional level on the basis of extended regional knowledge production model. Spatial econometric analysis indicated the relevance of internal innovation inputs (R&D expenditure and human resources in science and technology) and we also found out that, the production of knowledge by EU regions seems to be also affected by spatial spillovers due to innovative activity performed in other regions.