One sunny morning more people than usual had gathered at the CIRCLE office in Lund. Economic geographers, business researchers, policy researchers and others with an interest in innovation, from PhDs to professors, got together at CIRCLE for a workshop on regional innovation policy. The invited guests Professors Daniel Schiller, Elvira Uyarra and Koen Frenken all contributed to the excitement and anticipation in the air. An abundance of Swedish “fika” – coffee, sandwiches and cake – were presented on a table just outside the meeting room for the enthusiastic researchers to get stuck into.

Rhiannon Pugh, Senior Lecturer at CIRCLE, and organiser of the event, described the atmosphere in the room as buzzing:

– Ideas were bouncing around in a very free and easy manner. I appreciated the good spirit and energy that comes when a lot of people get together who have the same passions and interests. This is a really fun part of being at CIRCLE – that people are passionate about their research topics!

The meeting room was full of people from different countries and, as it was a hybrid meeting, several people had also tuned in from around Europe to discuss different angles on innovation policy.

– A lot of people had clearly been having the same thoughts about the future of innovation policy at the regional level, and common themes emerged around multi-level governance, directionality, peripheral regions, and mission-oriented innovation policy. It was nice to see that many of us from different countries and research groups had a lot of ideas and research interests in common.

It was a productive few hours and Rhiannon Pugh is hopeful it will lead to new partnerships:

– We had a number of tangible ideas about how we could take our thoughts forwards and I hope future collaborations will emerge.