Rethinking the role of local knowledge networks in territorial innovation models

Traditionally, territorial innovation models (Moulaert and Sekia 2003), such as clusters, industrial districts, and regional innovation systems, are characterised by a geographic concentration of competences and knowledge as well as by the spatial diffusion of competences and knowledge (Saxenian 1994; Sorenson and Stuart 2001; Tallman et al. 2004; Marshall 1920). However, competences and knowledge are not ubiquitous and available to all organisations located within such geographic concentrations. Knowledge, for instance, rather diffuses through internal and external knowledge networks (Giuliani and Bell 2005; Giuliani 2013; Fitjar and Rodríguez-Pose 2017). Consequently, it has been recognised for a long time that a comprehensive understanding of the working and success of territorial innovation systems is only possible when it is based on a framework centred on these systems’ internal and external knowledge networks (Giuliani 2005; Glückler 2007). Inspired by this idea, a rich stream of research has emerged that seeks to generate insights into the emergence, working, and structures of such networks. For instance, works in this stream analyse factors explaining the emergence and evolution over time of internal knowledge network relations (Cassi and Plunket 2015; Menzel, Feldman, and Broekel 2017; Niosi and Banik 2005; Plum and Hassink 2011; Ter Wal 2014), the embeddedness of clusters (and their internal networks) into inter-regional and global knowledge linkages (see many contributions in the special issue by Scherngell (2013); Broekel, Fornahl, and Morrison 2015), and the role-specific organisations play in the establishment of such external linkages (Graf 2011; Morrison 2008). This special issue contributes to this general debate and aims to rethink the role of local knowledge networks in territorial innovation models unveiling also new research opportunities. It partly consists of papers presented at two international conferences on ‘Rethinking Clusters’1 in Florence in 2018 and in Padua, in 2019.