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 Midtjylland (DK04)
(regions within the same country are included in the comparison) 		Distance index
Syddanmark - Denmark (DK03) 0.0032
Västsverige - Sweden (SE23) 0.0098
Etelä-Suomi - Finland (FI18) 0.0120
Länsi-Suomi - Finland (FI19) 0.0138
Sydsverige - Sweden (SE22) 0.0152
Nordjylland - Denmark (DK05) 0.0152
Östra Mellansverige - Sweden (SE12) 0.0153
Centre - France (FR24) 0.0190
Franche-Comté - France (FR43) 0.0193
Oberösterreich - Austria (AT31) 0.0201
Sjælland - Denmark (DK02) 0.0213
Småland med öarna - Sweden (SE21) 0.0214
Poitou-Charentes - France (FR53) 0.0221
Pohjois- ja Itä-Suomi - Finland (FI1D) 0.0223
Friesland (NL) - Netherlands (NL12) 0.0255
East Midlands, England - United Kingdom (UKF) 0.0260
Overijssel - Netherlands (NL21) 0.0265
South West, England - United Kingdom (UKK) 0.0266
Alsace - France (FR42) 0.0270
Pays de la Loire - France (FR51) 0.0273
Note! Lower index value = region closer to the selected region
2014 Orkestra - Instituto Vasco de Competitividad & S3 Platform