The development of a so-called knowledge economy remains a widespread ambition for Europe. The Lisbon Strategy aimed to make EU "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world" (European Council, 2000), and the current "Europe 2020" strategy is even more ambitious because knowledge is seen as a prerequisite not only for economic growth but also for social cohesion (European Commission, 2010). At a regional scale, this ambition has been translated into economic development policies that draw heavily on concepts from Regional Studies and Economic Geography in aiming to support "clusters", innovative "milieus" and "triple helix" relations (Amara, 2005; Lagendijk, 2006; Rutten & Boekema, 2007; Borras & Tsagdis, 2008). These policies reflect what have become almost axiomatic assumptions about the benefits of geographical proximity, institutional thickness and the development of close relationships/knowledge exchange between firms and other organizations in sectorally defined regional agglomerations of economic activity. To be successful, however, public policies must reflect and respond to current economic structures and processes, and the relationship between public policy and economic development remains intricate and ambiguous. At best, policy-makers will target perceived causes of, for example, slow growth or low levels of innovation in a particular region, but the effects of public initiatives may still be uncertain due to the complex interaction between local and global processes. Policy-making is not just a rationalistic exercise in problem-solving but a heterogeneous multi-tier political process prone to path dependency with regard to governance, strategies and implementation, and hence public initiatives may point to all sorts of directions.
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