A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Developing Øresund Region’s Innovation System With
Clean Technology Entrepreneurship
Peter Kiryushin 1 , Bala Mulloth 2 and Tatiana Iakovleva 3
1
The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, Lund
University, Lund, Sweden
2
CEU Business School, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
3
Stavanger Business School, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway
pkiryushin@gmail.com
mullothb@ceubusiness.org
tatiana.a.iakovleva@uis.no
Abstract: Although it is generally anticipated that innovation as such leads to regional prosperity (Asheim et al.
2011) there is lack of empirical evidence that confirms the direct linkage between the innovation capabilities of
regions and welfare increase. It is suggested that entrepreneurship can be seen as a missing link that helps to
transfer innovations into business outcomes (Braun et al. 2012). The aim of this explorative paper is to create the
holistic view of the regional development, its innovation system related to cleantech, entrepreneurship and triple
helix collaboration on the example of Øresund, Danish-Swedish transnational region. Eighteen interviews with
regional stakeholders related to academia, business and administrations were conducted in order to understand
their vision on cleantech innovation and entrepreneurship development. In addition, available secondary data
such as peer-reviewed articles, industry and governmental reports were analyzed. It was found that the process
of interregional collaboration and networking for the development of research-based innovations in Øresund
seems not as promising as it was expected. Our findings reveal that in order to innovations in cleantech to be
utilized, the efforts of entrepreneurs are necessary to promote knowledge spillover from research institutes and
“locked” systems into business environment. Upcoming economic recession, could stimulate the development of
entrepreneurship, and academic entrepreneurship in particular. Increasing development of research-based
innovations related to social science significantly extends the magnitude and possibility to involve academia and
students in academic entrepreneurship and cleantech. It was concluded that new agenda for the interregional
development could be associated with cleantech. Some of the measures that could support cleantech
development include: redirection of public funds towards cleantech, development of sociotechnical innovations;
cooperation between cleantech startups with non-cleantech industry, development of fiscal incentives and tax
breaks as well as promotion of small and medium cleantech enterprises.
Keywords: regional innovation system, cleantech, triple helix, entrepreneurship, cross-border cooperation,
Øresund
1. Introduction
Regional innovation systems and their rots are widely debated topic in the literature (Asheim, et al.
2011; Lundvall 1992). It is often suggested that innovation policy should take into consideration
regional advantage (European Commission 2006). Although it is generally anticipated that innovation
as such leads to regional prosperity, there is lack of empirical evidence that confirms the direct
linkage between the innovation and research capacity of regions and welfare increase. At the same
time, it is suggested that entrepreneurship can be seen as a missing link that helps to transfer
innovations into business outcomes (Braun et al. 2012). Extending this line of research, we aim to
address the following research question: “How can entrepreneurship in clean technologies serve as a
driver for regional innovation system?”
In the research we attempted to analyze regional innovation system (RIS) of Øresund from the
perspective of cleantech innovations, entrepreneurship and triple helix collaboration, which assumes
cross-institutional collaboration between academia, industry and government (Caniëls and Bosch
2011). Øresund is a transnational Danish-Swedish region that consists of Region Hovedstaden and
Region Zealand on the Danish side and Skåne County on the Swedish side. The region has a
significant capacity to produce research-based innovations, associated with universities and research
facilities and related industries. Øresund is one of the leading areas for production of entrepreneurial
cleantech start-up companies and commercialization of clean technology innovations (Cleantech
Group and WWF 2012). Moreover, cleantech is closely related to low-carbon development, which is
an important issue for the regional policies (State of Green 2011; Swedish Energy Agency 2010).
Regional innovation system could be described as “a set of interacting private and public interests,
formal institutions and other organizations that function according to organizational and institutional
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