Defining the concept and providing a model for the implementation of innovation districts: A meta-synthesis analysis using text-mining

Innovation districts as creators and disseminators of the innovation ecosystems have been highly regarded by academics, researchers, policymakers, and businesses in recent years. This study aimed to fully understand the main approaches that create innovation districts, the concept and development timeline, and finally, an implementing model by an in-depth look at the infrastructures. Due to the multidisciplinary and multidimensional nature of the previous literature, this study used the meta-synthesis method. The need for sufficient accuracy, besides the voluminous contents of previous research, led us to use the new data mining method to extract items and check their frequency of use in the resources. In the first step, the findings reveal the indicators needed to create an innovation ecosystem. In the second step, the findings reveal the concept, nature, and development paradigms. Finally, the finding provides the innovation districts' implementing model based on upstream paradigms in the third one. The findings are essential for scientists, policymakers, and executives active in the fields of higher education, business, and technology because they reveal the roles, positions, value chains, and infrastructures of all required elements together in an integrated system to shape an innovation ecosystem.