Innovation and entrepreneurship in smart cities: the role of research centres in marginal urban areas

A current topic on which is struggling both in scientific literature and in the political sphere is the regeneration of urban deprived areas. It is well established that the thickness of local markets can enhance entrepreneurial activity (Vernon (1960)). It’s this true also for the particular case of new services? In past it is has been established that because they carry out so many different tasks, a balance of skills may be beneficial to entrepreneurs (Lazear, 2004, 2005). An actual approach, from service's prospective, useful to promote the entrepreneurial activity, is think in term of a smart city. The concept of “Smart City”, providing a solution for making cities more efficient and sustainable, has been quite popular in recent years, encouraging reflections, ideas, researches and projects for a “smart” urban development, particularly with reference to the smart service (Spohrer and Maglio, 2010; Barile and Polese, 2010). In this frame which rule have the universities and the research centres? We know that universities potentially contribute to healthy and sustainable regional economies in numerous ways (Goldstein, 1995). This paper proposes a model, with both theoretical and managerial implications, to analyze and to model the effects, if they are relevant, of the interdependence between research centres and the entrepreneurial activity in deprived urban areas in the age of smart city. So the paper aims to give an answer to the question regarding the possibility to requalify an area through a research centre considering, as driver of the approach, the entrepreneurial activity related to the new smart services for citizens generated by this co-creation value. Empirical results regard the east area of Naples (Italy)