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 Västsverige (SE23)
(regions within the same country are included in the comparison) 		Distance index
Östra Mellansverige - Sweden (SE12) 0.0073
Etelä-Suomi - Finland (FI18) 0.0085
Sydsverige - Sweden (SE22) 0.0088
Midtjylland - Denmark (DK04) 0.0098
Syddanmark - Denmark (DK03) 0.0113
Länsi-Suomi - Finland (FI19) 0.0133
Midi-Pyrénées - France (FR62) 0.0140
Centre - France (FR24) 0.0146
South West, England - United Kingdom (UKK) 0.0165
Franche-Comté - France (FR43) 0.0165
Poitou-Charentes - France (FR53) 0.0172
Pays de la Loire - France (FR51) 0.0180
Nordjylland - Denmark (DK05) 0.0189
East Midlands, England - United Kingdom (UKF) 0.0189
Niederösterreich - Austria (AT12) 0.0201
Aquitaine - France (FR61) 0.0202
Alsace - France (FR42) 0.0208
Pohjois- ja Itä-Suomi - Finland (FI1D) 0.0216
Stockholm - Sweden (SE11) 0.0218
Oberösterreich - Austria (AT31) 0.0220
Note! Lower index value = region closer to the selected region
2014 Orkestra - Instituto Vasco de Competitividad & S3 Platform