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 Veneto (ITH3)
(regions within the same country are included in the comparison)
Distance index
Toscana - Italy (ITI1) 0.0098
Emilia-Romagna - Italy (ITH5) 0.0099
Piemonte - Italy (ITC1) 0.0118
Lombardia - Italy (ITC4) 0.0144
Umbria - Italy (ITI2) 0.0161
Cataluña - Spain (ES51) 0.0172
Friuli-Venezia Giulia - Italy (ITH4) 0.0182
Marche - Italy (ITI3) 0.0182
Abruzzo - Italy (ITF1) 0.0222
Puglia - Italy (ITF4) 0.0224
Norte - Portugal (PT11) 0.0236
Provincia Autonoma Trento - Italy (ITH2) 0.0239
Comunidad Valenciana - Spain (ES52) 0.0246
Aragón - Spain (ES24) 0.0253
Niederösterreich - Austria (AT12) 0.0256
Bourgogne - France (FR26) 0.0274
Galicia - Spain (ES11) 0.0294
Tirol - Austria (AT33) 0.0300
Castilla y León - Spain (ES41) 0.0309
Lazio - Italy (ITI4) 0.0309
Note! Lower index value = region closer to the selected region