Regional Innovation Strategies

Regional innovation strategies which emerged during the mid 90s and were implemented especially in the developing regions of the world are significant for the transformation of both the knowledge produced in the regional scale and the added value it created into competitive power in the national and global scale. These strategies which have successfully been implemented in different parts of the world are a great opportunity for a country like Turkey which has a large young population and stands out among the other developing countries with her strategic location and potentials for human resources, agriculture and commerce. Focusing on these strategies and exploring national and regional innovation systems, this chapter both investigates the leader implementations in Europe and examines the first implementations of regional innovation strategies in Turkey. This chapter suggests that by transforming her regional innovation skills into products and services that have added value, Turkey will have a potential to achieve rapid social and economic development and therefore increase her significance for the national and international innovative investors.