Dr. Wolfgang Gerstlberger, University of Kassel

A more systemic design of regional processes of development and learning has gradually gained importance in institutions for national as well as European promotion of research and innovation in the course of the nineties (Ash, Thrift 1994). An essential difference as against earlier promotion programmes, however, lies in an enlarged understanding of innovative development of enterprises and regions. Whilst during the eighties public promotion of innovation in a narrower sense was largely oriented on technology, cautious attempts at integration in the respect of ecological or social consequences and impacts may be noted since the beginning of the nineties. These attempts at integration were initiated essentially by the vision of Sustainable Development (SD). This vision issued from the report “Our Common Future” of the World Commission on Sustainable Development (“Brundtland Report”, 1987) and the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held at Rio de Janeiro (Agenda 21, 1992; Hauff 1987, UNCED 1992). A second essential aspect of that enlarged understanding of innovative development of enterprises and regions in a growing number of EU promotion programmes is concerned with increasing emphasis on individual and organisational learning processes. It is from intensifying the public-private regional knowledge transfer within a framework of Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) that the EU and national governments are expecting to strengthen the innovating ability of private, but also public, enterprises in a long-term perspective.