Benchmarking Regional Structure Rev. 2013

Finding reference regions based on structural similarities


A key to build sound innovation strategies for smart specialisation at the regional level is to identify opportunities for learning policy lessons and transferring practices from other regions. But what are the regions one should consider as a reference for these purposes? Our proposal is to start by identifying regions that share similar structural conditions which are relevant for innovation-driven development (social, economic, technological, institutional and geographical characteristics). That is, characteristics that cannot be easily changed in the short term and that are demonstrated to affect the way innovation and economic evolution take place in a region. Below you will find an interactive tool that allows you to identify reference regions across Europe based on a methodology jointly developed by Orkestra – Basque Institute of Competitiveness and the S3 Platform.

Documents
Methodological paper
Structural variables & data
Regional NUTS codes

Interactive tool


How it works

  1. Select a region in the top window
  2. Choose the number of reference regions you want to be displayed
  3. Decide if you want to exclude regions from the same country from the results
  4. Press “refresh” to get the results
  5. A list of regions will appear on the right side of the screen sorted in descending order from the ones that are more similar (top) to the less similar (bottom) to the region selected
  6. The order is given by a synthetic index of structural distance (lower value=structurally closer to the selected region) explained in the methodological paper.


The 20 nearest regions to Sachsen-Anhalt (DEE)
(regions within the same country are included in the comparison)
Distance index
Brandenburg - Germany (DE4) 0.0134
Thüringen - Germany (DEG) 0.0140
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - Germany (DE8) 0.0159
Rheinland-Pfalz - Germany (DEB) 0.0213
Schleswig-Holstein - Germany (DEF) 0.0227
Niederösterreich - Austria (AT12) 0.0274
Sachsen - Germany (DED) 0.0277
Niedersachsen - Germany (DE9) 0.0287
Steiermark - Austria (AT22) 0.0335
Hessen - Germany (DE7) 0.0346
Saarland - Germany (DEC) 0.0359
Nordrhein-Westfalen - Germany (DEA) 0.0363
Kärnten - Austria (AT21) 0.0364
Wales - United Kingdom (UKL) 0.0365
Jihovychod - Czech Republic (CZ06) 0.0372
Slaskie - Poland (PL22) 0.0403
País Vasco - Spain (ES21) 0.0412
Oberösterreich - Austria (AT31) 0.0413
Moravskoslezsko - Czech Republic (CZ08) 0.0418
Bayern - Germany (DE2) 0.0420
Note! Lower index value = region closer to the selected region