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The book spans a scientific research program elegantly developed by Roberto Camagni, an eminent regional scientist, who has offered ground-breaking ideas in regional and urban economics throughout his academic career. In addition to bringing together a selection of Professor Camagni's most influential works, the book presents syntheses and interpretations of his ideas by respected colleagues and by his students. In regional economics, space as territory, which plays an active role in innovation processes and in regional growth patterns; territorial capital as a synthetic concept of differentiated regional growth assets; and sources of regional competitiveness are only a few of the main ideas that emerged in regional economics thanks to this inspiring mind. In urban economics, he paved the way towards a new theoretical interpretation of the existence of the city and of its dynamics. His theory of city networks overcame the limits of Christaller's and Lösch's spatial approach to the city, with a solid economic conceptualization of spatial city network structures. All theories are accompanied by sound policy analysis, helping to contribute to the design and implementation of appropriate spatial policies at the European level.--

AbstractRegional competitiveness has been made increasingly dependent on soft, intangible assets. One of these latter is certainly territorial identity. This concept, however, lacks a clear definition and a sound measure. The aim of this paper is to enter the debate on territorial identity. Building on the concepts of similarity and solidarity as elements essential for definition of identity, the paper elaborates on the "territorial" dimension of identity, and on the laws of accumulation and depletion of such a soft asset. Finally, starting from the definition of territorial identity as "the presence of socio‐economic context conditions allowing convergence between collective and private interests, and feeding a sense of belonging and loyalty to a community", the paper suggests a composite indicator for territorial identity, and applies it to all European NUTS 2 regions, and draws policy implications from the concept.

AbstractThis article investigates the way in which regions innovate. Its conceptual framework departs from the simple notion that scientific activities equate with knowledge, which assumes that the presence of local knowledge produced by research centres, universities and firms is a necessary and sufficient condition for increasing the innovative capacities in local firms, fed by local spillovers. In particular, the paradigmatic jump in interpreting regional innovation processes lies in a conceptual framework interpreting not a single phase of the innovation process, but the different modes of performing different phases of the innovation process. This article conceptually identifies different territorial patterns of innovation and highlights the context conditions (internal and external to the region) that accompany each innovation pattern. Based on this debate, I express some doubts on the usefulness of EU policy aims for achieving a figure of 3% of the EU's GDP (public and private) to be invested in R&D/innovation and instead strongly support normative suggestions towards thematically and regionally focused innovation policies.

AbstractAmong the factors highlighted by the literature as crucial for the success of cohesion policies in generating satisfaction among citizens, and therefore in acting positively on the constitution of an European identity, this paper emphasizes a particular one, territorial identity. Elaborating on the definition of territorial identity as a local condition in which private interests coincide with public ones, the paper claims that territorial identity plays an important role in a European identity‐building process. In fact, by increasing the probability that local public expenditures match private interests, territorial identity generates a favourable context where the critical factors that hamper the successful programming, design and implementation of cohesion policies can be overcome.

AbstractIf the need to develop a knowledge economy at the regional level is increasingly evident to policy makers in Europe, the right set of policies to accomplish such an aim has not yet been devised, and is an important policy debate also at the European Community level. This special issue is a step forward in this direction. The design and implementation of regional innovation policies should take the specificities of each regional mode of innovation into account, and these peculiarities can be highlighted only through sound scientific conceptual and empirical analyses in which the regional dimension is carefully taken into consideration and the spatial effects of policy tools like R&D investments and innovation incentives clearly assessed in terms of their impact on regional growth in different regional contexts. It is in this spirit that this special issue has been conceived.