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 Sydsverige (SE22)
(regions within the same country are included in the comparison) 		Distance index
Västsverige - Sweden (SE23) 0.0088
Etelä-Suomi - Finland (FI18) 0.0089
Östra Mellansverige - Sweden (SE12) 0.0106
Nordjylland - Denmark (DK05) 0.0138
Midtjylland - Denmark (DK04) 0.0152
Länsi-Suomi - Finland (FI19) 0.0165
Pohjois- ja Itä-Suomi - Finland (FI1D) 0.0170
Stockholm - Sweden (SE11) 0.0181
Syddanmark - Denmark (DK03) 0.0185
Bretagne - France (FR52) 0.0197
Övre Norrland - Sweden (SE33) 0.0219
South West, England - United Kingdom (UKK) 0.0219
Centre - France (FR24) 0.0232
East of England - United Kingdom (UKH) 0.0236
Poitou-Charentes - France (FR53) 0.0238
Sjælland - Denmark (DK02) 0.0240
Franche-Comté - France (FR43) 0.0251
Midi-Pyrénées - France (FR62) 0.0255
Noord-Brabant - Netherlands (NL41) 0.0261
Wien - Austria (AT13) 0.0268
Note! Lower index value = region closer to the selected region
2014 Orkestra - Instituto Vasco de Competitividad & S3 Platform