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Regional innovation capacity is an essential factor for balanced regional development as well as for strengthening regional competitiveness. This study proposes to evaluate regional innovation capacity of 16 regional cities and provinces in Korea. We define regional innovation capacity as a comprehensive regional innovative environment and as the capabilities of local authority and economic agents, who can bring forth regional economic prosperity through technological innovation and industrialization.
This study comparatively analyzes regional innovative competence with 22 indicators in four different evaluative areas: innovative environment, innovative resources, innovative efforts and activities, and innovative output. Our results show that the Seoul metropolitan area(capital region) occupies over 50% of the weight of the nation-wide innovative competence.
One of the interesting results is that the structure of the four evaluative areas' weight turns out to be opposite between local provinces and the Seoul metropolitan area. Most local cities and provinces have a structure of 'innovative environment > innovative efforts and activities > innovative resources > innovative output' in their nation-wide weight, while Seoul and the capital area has the opposite structure. This phenomenon implies the need for local authorities' effort together with the central government's policy considerations to enhance the effect and efficiency of local activities for innovation.
