This paper explores the importance of a region’s ability to absorb knowledge, and how policy can improve this ability.

Key findings:

• A place’s success depends on its ability to access, absorb, spread and apply ideas generated elsewhere.
• Most innovations in the UK draw on knowledge and resources from overseas, and international partnerships are central to innovation.
• However, not all places extract the same value from such networks. 
• The way places innovate varies across the UK, but the ability to create and absorb knowledge remains a problem for most regions.
• Government needs to support places’ abilities to draw on external knowledge, for example by developing access channels.

Globalisation is changing. New economies and centres for innovation are emerging and capital, ideas, goods and people are moving more freely between them. 

The more connected a place is, the more successful it can become, but this requires an ability to absorb knowledge from elsewhere.

This policy briefing shows why one-size-fits-all innovation strategies are unlikely to match a locality's unique strengths, and innovation policy focused only on the production of new knowledge will miss an important source of competitive advantage.

Author:

Nesta