New directions in regional innovation policy: a network model for generating entrepreneurship and economic development

Lifting the economic performance of lagging regions continues to puzzle economic development practitioners and analysts. As a means of contributing some solutions to this puzzle, this paper examines a policy intervention that promotes regional development through a public–private-sector initiative that uses a network model to catalyze innovation-driven entrepreneurship. It focuses on a programme operated by the Alacrity Foundation in the region of Wales, UK. The paper argues that Alacrity’s model offers a novel means of attempting to facilitate regional development through a programme that intertwines elements relating to entrepreneurship, innovation, and network policy and practice. It is novel in the sense that it seeks to de-risk the entrepreneurial and innovation process in a regional environment that is not traditionally strong in this respect. It is concluded that such programmes indicate that policy is beginning to embrace a number of ideas emerging from theoretical work on the drivers of regional innovation and growth