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 Nordjylland (DK05)
(regions within the same country are included in the comparison) 		Distance index
Sydsverige - Sweden (SE22) 0.0138
Midtjylland - Denmark (DK04) 0.0152
Länsi-Suomi - Finland (FI19) 0.0156
Östra Mellansverige - Sweden (SE12) 0.0171
Etelä-Suomi - Finland (FI18) 0.0185
Västsverige - Sweden (SE23) 0.0189
Syddanmark - Denmark (DK03) 0.0190
Pohjois- ja Itä-Suomi - Finland (FI1D) 0.0204
Bretagne - France (FR52) 0.0237
Övre Norrland - Sweden (SE33) 0.0259
Stockholm - Sweden (SE11) 0.0270
Franche-Comté - France (FR43) 0.0288
Centre - France (FR24) 0.0299
Poitou-Charentes - France (FR53) 0.0315
Comunidad Foral de Navarra - Spain (ES22) 0.0328
Midi-Pyrénées - France (FR62) 0.0335
Steiermark - Austria (AT22) 0.0348
South West, England - United Kingdom (UKK) 0.0350
Basse-Normandie - France (FR25) 0.0357
Limousin - France (FR63) 0.0357
Note! Lower index value = region closer to the selected region
2014 Orkestra - Instituto Vasco de Competitividad & S3 Platform