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 Centru (RO12)
(regions within the same country are included in the comparison) 		Distance index
Sud-Est - Romania (RO22) 0.0161
Lubuskie - Poland (PL43) 0.0199
Vest - Romania (RO42) 0.0215
Lodzkie - Poland (PL11) 0.0241
Podlaskie - Poland (PL34) 0.0253
Yuzhen tsentralen - Bulgaria (BG42) 0.0269
Podkarpackie - Poland (PL32) 0.0300
Opolskie - Poland (PL52) 0.0301
Sud - Muntenia - Romania (RO31) 0.0302
Malopolskie - Poland (PL21) 0.0318
Severoiztochen - Bulgaria (BG33) 0.0318
Dolnoslaskie - Poland (PL51) 0.0341
Nord-Est - Romania (RO21) 0.0344
Nord-Vest - Romania (RO11) 0.0353
Swietokrzyskie - Poland (PL33) 0.0369
Del-Dunantul - Hungary (HU23) 0.0378
Vzhodna Slovenija - Slovenia (SI01) 0.0382
Nyugat-Dunantul - Hungary (HU22) 0.0392
Kujawsko-Pomorskie - Poland (PL61) 0.0397
Del-Alfold - Hungary (HU33) 0.0398
Note! Lower index value = region closer to the selected region
2014 Orkestra - Instituto Vasco de Competitividad & S3 Platform