Global Innovation Systems and Production Networks and Their Influence on Green Regional Industrial Path Development

• Christian Binz – Eawag, Lund University – Christian.Binz@eawag.ch
• Bernhard Truffer – Eawag, Utrecht University – bernhard.truffer@eawag.ch
• Johan Miörner – Eawag, Lund University – johan.miorner@eawag.ch
• Michaela Trippl – University of Vienna – michaela.trippl@univie.ac.at
• Markus Steen – SINTEF – markus.steen@sintef.no

Recent scholarship in economic geography and transition studies increasingly acknowledges that ‘green’ regional path development intimately depends on extra-regional innovation dynamics and multi-scalar interdependencies (Binz & Truffer, 2017; Heiberg et al., 2020; Trippl et al., 2018; Yeung, 2021). How new-the-world green industries emerge, regions diversify into (related or unrelated) cleantech industries, or existing industries undergo sustainability-oriented transformations, depends on a complex interplay between territorially embedded industrial capabilities, institutional structures and actor strategies, and their interaction with supra-regional sectoral structures.

To improve our understanding of those multi-scalar dynamics, scholars in economic geography are increasingly combining analytical frameworks that explore innovation processes in territorial contexts (regional innovation systems, clusters, industrial districts, etc.) with concepts that tackle multi-scalar exchange processes with globalized industrial and sectoral structures (Heiberg et al., 2020; Trippl et al., 2018; Wu, 2021; Yeung, 2021). Especially theorizing around global innovation systems (GIS) and global production network (GPN) has received deepened attention recently . Among others, work at this conceptual interface has explored how regions develop green paths through strategic coupling with lead firms in green industries (Dawley et al., 2019; MacKinnon et al., 2019); how innovation dynamics and value capture in regions differs between industries with different (global) innovation system types (Binz et al., 2017; Hipp & Binz, 2020; Rohe, 2020); how regions mobilize extra-regional system resources in their path development and transformation trajectories (Binz et al., 2020; Miörner & Trippl, 2019; Trippl et al., 2020; Yu et al., 2021); or how market success of green technologies depend on transnational legitimacy flows (Heiberg et al., 2020) or participation in transnational R&D networks (Tsouri et al., 2021).

At the same time, it is fair to say that these lines of work are still emergent and that many highly relevant research avenues remain underexplored. The GIS and GPN lenses would need important conceptual specifications and improvements to be able to fully capture the multi-scalar dynamics in emergent, green and often policy-driven innovation and sectoral change processes. The same goes for economic geography’s core concepts for explaining regional innovation and transformation dynamics. This special session track accordingly aims at exploring whether and how fostering the interface between frameworks that emphasize territorially embedded and multi-scalar/global innovation dynamics may improve our theorizing of the determinants of green industrial path development in regions. How can GIS and GPN perspectives improve our understanding of green regional industrial path development? How would they in turn have to be adapted to better conceptualize regional green innovation and transformation dynamics? And what are key cornerstones of a research agenda on coupled regional-sectoral green innovation dynamics?

We welcome papers that make theoretical as well as empirical contributions to this theme. Topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Multi-scalar innovation dynamics in industries with different GIS types
• Technology characteristics and their influence on industry evolution in space
• Strategic coupling between GPN lead firms and regional actors/territorialized assets in green sectors
• GPN/GVC governance types and implications for green path development
• Multi-scalar innovation dynamics in different parts of green industries’ value chains
• Extra-regional relations as a causal mechanism for (green) regional path development
• Interplay of innovation and valuation dynamics in multi-scalar innovation systems
• Structural couplings between knowledge, market, financial and legitimacy dynamics in GIS
• Regional inter-path relations and multi-scalar interactions
• Path-dependencies in global sector structures and their influence on regional reconfiguration trajectories
• Exploring the re-regionalization of innovation dynamics in a Post-Covid world
• Nested relationships between lead- and follower-regions in sectoral transformation processes
• Peripheral/latecomer regions’ mobilization of GIS/GPN/GVC structures in developing green industrial paths
• Exploring the ‘dark sides’ of coupling to global production networks in green sectors
• Methodological innovation in assessing multi-scalar innovation processes
• New policy approaches for governing regional green industrial path development based on a more multi-scalar outlook

References

• Binz, C., Gosens, J., Hansen, T., & Hansen, U. E. (2017). Toward technology-sensitive catching-up policies: Insights from renewable energy in China. World Development, 96, 418-437.
• Binz, C., Gosens, J., Yap, X., & Yu, Z. (2020). Catch-up dynamics in early industry lifecycle stages— a typology and comparative case studies in four clean-tech industries. Industrial and Corporate Change, https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/dtaa020.
• Binz, C., & Truffer, B. (2017). Global Innovation Systems—A conceptual framework for innovation dynamics in transnational contexts. Research Policy, 64(7), 1284-1298.
• Dawley, S., MacKinnon, D., & Pollock, R. (2019). Creating strategic couplings in global production networks: regional institutions and lead firm investment in the Humber region, UK. Journal of Economic Geography, 19(4), 853-872.
• Heiberg, J., Binz, C., & Truffer, B. (2020). The Geography of Technology Legitimation. How multiscalar legitimation processes matter for path creation in emerging industries. Economic Geography, 96(5), 470-498. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2020.1842189
• Hipp, A., & Binz, C. (2020). Firm survival in complex value chains and global innovation systems: Evidence from solar photovoltaics. Research Policy, 49(1).
• MacKinnon, D., Dawley, S., Steen, M., Menzel, M.-P., Karlsen, A., Sommer, P., Hansen, G. H., & Normann, H. E. (2019). Path creation, global production networks and regional development: A comparative international analysis of the offshore wind sector. Progress in Planning, 130, 1-32.
• Miörner, J., & Trippl, M. (2019). Embracing the future: Path transformation and system reconfiguration for self-driving cars in West Sweden. European Planning Studies, 27(11), 2144-2162.
• Rohe, S. (2020). The regional facet of a global innovation system: Exploring the spatiality of resource formation in the value chain for onshore wind energy. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 36, 331-344.