The Regional Council of Jönköping County, together with the County Administrative Board, has decided to co-fund the research project “Accessibility, Innovation Processes and Growth” at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS). The project will be conducted at the research centre CEnSE (Centre for Entrepreneurship and Spatial Economics). The financing allowed for an application to the EU’s structural fund for regional development projects, which has now been granted. This means that CEnSE researchers are getting closer to SEK 6 million to do research on innovation processes and the importance of local networking and collaboration between companies.
The project will focus on three municipalities in the County of Jönköping. The county is known for its entrepreneurial spirit, and many of its municipalities have a high proportion of small-and medium-sized enterprises and a comparatively high proportion employed in manufacturing. The business community in the county is also influenced by international and interregional trade, and market conditions that are shaped by both global trends and regional conditions.
“This means that innovation processes in our county is likely to be particularly influenced by collaborations and interaction between companies and other players,” says Lars Pettersson, who will lead the project. “These issues are interesting and relevant from both a scientific and a regional development perspective, as local processes of innovation is an area where not much research has been done in the past.”
Johan Klaesson, director of CEnSE, is thrilled about the new project, since it offers an opportunity to further develop the results from the centre’s on-going research project ” Accessibility, Growth and Planning”.
The project will also be supported by CESIS (Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies), which is a collaboration between JIBS and KTH in Stockholm.
“We hope to be able to provide knowledge and understanding of how local innovation processes work, and that this knowledge can be utilized in the strategic development to promote a sustainable and innovative regional economy with good prospects for long-term growth. Our goal is that the project will help to further develop and strengthen the current research focus and research environment excellence at JIBS,” says Johan Klaesson.
