Innovation and the corresponding innovation policies are all too often wrongly confined to technological innovation. This ignores the many other forms of innovation, particularly those of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), whose innovations frequently are not based on R&D but on doing-using-interacting (DUI). The overwhelming majority of SMEs thus innovate differently from the few large firms. This has clear spatial implications, as Christoph Friedrich and Rolf Sternberg show in their latest paper published in Regional Science Policy & Practice. Their core message: because SMEs that innovate via DUI are, in relative terms, more frequently located in economically weaker regions than SMEs innovating through R&D, a different innovation policy is needed there. Despite decades of innovation policy strategies from the EU and at federal, state and municipal levels, regional economic disparities have not decreased significantly. As part of the BMFTR-funded research project DUI.REG, the authors therefore report in their now-published article that they asked 59 innovative entrepreneurs from six lagging regions what they think of the policies designed for them. The responses culminate in recommendations for seven fields of action with the aim of both meeting the needs of SMEs and improving the innovation performance of the lagging regions.
Friedrich, C.; Sternberg, R. (2026): Regional innovation policies in favor of doing-using interacting (DUI) innovations in lagging regions: What about the perceptions of local SMEs? Regional Science Policy & Practice 18 (1), 100254. DOI: 10.1016/j.rspp.2025.100254
