In the study of

innovation system The concept of the innovation system stresses that the flow of technology and information among people, enterprises, and institutions is key to an innovative process. It contains the interactions between the actors needed in order to turn an idea in ...

s, a regional innovation system (RIS) encourages the rapid diffusion of knowledge, skills and best practice within a geographic area larger than a city, but smaller than a nation. The edge of a regional innovation system may be drawn conceptually and organizationally around the economic, social, political and institutional relationships that generate a collective learning process within a related group of technological or functional areas. A recent study has shown that innovation output is higher in regions where both a sizable population of small firms and large firms are present. In regions lacking large firms, universities can take on the important role of knowledge brokers for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In the European context, the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

following a regional development model (dividing European territories in administrative and statistical national subdivisions) gives great emphasis to RIS. The regional innovation systems had been favoured especially after the setting of Lisbon's strategy goals. Now regional innovation policies had been incorporated in various larger or smaller EU initiatives and policy packages and large part of the investments by the EU structural funds is devoted to the creation or enhancement of the local-regional innovation systems. Switzerland defines regional innovation systems (RIS) as "functional economic spaces – usually supracantonal and even cross-border in some cases – where networks of important actors for innovation processes, such as companies, research and education establishments, as well as public authorities". The Swiss New Regional Policy (NPR) influences the development of RIS since it supports the RIS governance and management, whose activities encompass services intended for start-up and SMEs: point of entry, networking platforms, cluster development and coaching. The

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...

focuses on regional innovation system as part of the Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC) activities. It fosters best practices exchanges on this and regularly publishes reports on related issues (for example included in the Territorial Reviews). "Peer reviews provide analytic assessment and policy advice for regions, reviews examine the strength of the regional innovation system, the appropriateness of the policy mix for the region's needs, and the strategic use of the region's resources given global, national, regional and local factor. For countries, reviews assess the extent to which policies from different policy streams (e.g., regional development, science and technology, enterprise policy and higher education policy) are effective in building regional innovation systems and clusters for the range of region types in the country". The RIS concept, which originated in European academic literature, has been used as an influential analytical tool in different

Latin American Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-eth ...

countries. In Medellin,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

, the RIS concept has been adopted to support new technological trajectories. At the center of the RIS is the regional innovation agency,

Ruta N Corporation Ruta N (better known as Ruta N) is a public joint venture between the mayor's office of Medellín, UNE y EPM. Founded in 2009, Ruta-N was created in order to inspire and encourage innovation in the city and create favorable condition ...

. Regional innovation agencies have been created in many regions around the world to support the innovation process in their RIS.Morisson, A. & Doussineau, M. (2019). Regional innovation governance and place-based policies: design, implementation and implications. Regional Studies, Regional Science,6(1),101–116. https://rsa.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681376.2019.1578257.

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