Introduction: Learning and Interaction — Drivers for Innovation in Current Competitive Markets

The challenge for Europe after the global economic and financial crisis is substantially different from the scenarios envisaged by the 2000 Lisbon Strategy. Then, optimistic perspectives of Europe catching up with the United States and becoming the most competitive region during a ten-year period were opened up, and the means of achieving this vision were to spend at least 3% of GDP on R&D, as stated in the Barcelona Declaration of 2002, following what Lundvall and Lorenz (2006) call the STI mode of innovation (Science, Technology, Innovation). Globalization having been identified as the basis of an understanding of the dynamics of contemporary capitalism, there was strong agreement that innovation was the key factor in promoting competitiveness in a globalizing knowledge economy (Porter, 1987; Lundvall, 2007). It is about twenty years since eminent academics acknowledged the role of innovation as the main driver of competitiveness, opening up the global market to new firms and developing countries capable of producing at very low cost (Drucker, 1985; Freeman, 1987; Porter, 1987; Dosi et al., 1988; Pyke and Sengenberger; 1992; Lundvall, 1992; Nelson, 1993; Asheim, 1994; Cooke, 2004). The solution points to leaving the low-road type of competition to enter markets for more sophisticated, specialized or niche products that can be produced by selected firms and/or systems/clusters of firms. For these reasons, these market segments are less price competitive and potentially highly remunerative.