Science, Technology and Innovation Policies to Strengthen Regional Innovation Systems

Regional innovation system (RIS) is one of the complementary approaches to innovation systems. Due to increase of regional imbalances and inequalities, RIS have recently attracted prominent attention of policy makers. Every region has its unique characteristics that affect economic transformation and evolution. Therefore, national policy mix is not sufficient to address specific regional needs. So, policy-makers should consider socio-economic factors and institutional settings beside knowledge exploration and exploitation systems in regional level. According to innovation systems literature, this article attempts to introduce fundamental concepts of RIS, most known typologies of regions and, appropriate RIS policies. In addition, a case study of RIS in provinces of Iran is discussed in the end of this article.