Breaking Out from Lock-In

Breaking Out from Lock-In

Author: 
Hospers, Gert-Jan
Place: 
Hershey, PA
Publisher: 
IGI Global
Date published: 
2010
Record type: 
Editor: 
de Pablos, Patricia Ordo?n?ez
Source: 
Regional Innovation Systems and Sustainable Development
Subject: 
Abstract: 

This chapter discusses strategies aimed at regional-economic structural change in the German Ruhrgebiet. The Ruhrgebiet used to be the largest industrial area in Western-Europe. After the crisis in the coal and steel industry the region pursued re-industrialisation policies in the 1960s and 1970s. These attempts were largely unsuccesful. Therefore, since the 1980s the involved actors gradually adopted regional innovation strategies. Thus, they were able to break out from the region’s lock-in situation. The re-orientation of the Ruhrgebiet towards innovation based on the industries’ expertise and past (e.g. environmental technology, energy and industrial tourism) is more successful than its earlier re-industrialisation attempts. Also for other old industrial areas in Europe this kind of place-based renewal might be the future.

Series: 
Advances in Electronic Government, Digital Divide, and Regional Development

CITATION: Hospers, Gert-Jan. Breaking Out from Lock-In edited by de Pablos, Patricia Ordo?n?ez . Hershey, PA : IGI Global , 2010. Regional Innovation Systems and Sustainable Development - Available at: https://library.au.int/breaking-out-lock