Benchmarking Innovation Performance in Ireland's Three NUTS 2 Regions

The capability of a region to generate advanced technology, information and ultimately knowledge is regarded as the single most important force driving economic growth. This paper provides benchmarks for the innovation performance of manufacturing businesses in the three NUTS 2 regions of Ireland (Border Midlands & West, South & East, Northern Ireland) in 1999, just prior to the start of the current Structural Funds programmes. Consideration of the regional innovation systems of Ireland's three NUTS 2 regions suggests (a) the knowledge generation and diffusion sub-systems of NI and the S&E are notably stronger and more evenly spread than that in the BMW region; (b) the knowledge application sub-system is notably weaker in NI. The implication is that the S&E region has the strongest RIS, having both a concentration of knowledge generating institutions and a relatively strong company base. These differentials are reflected in the innovation benchmarks with a clear regional hierarchy emerging topped by the S&E followed by the BMW region and Northern Ireland. In most cases, however, differences in innovation performance between the S&E and the BMW region prove statistically insignificant, while those between NI and the other two regions are stronger and often statistically significant. Indicators of AMT adoption suggest little consistent difference between the S&E and BMW regions and lower adoption rates in NI. As before this reflects both the structural weaknesses of the NI manufacturing sector and lower plant-level AMT usage rates. Our analysis suggests that in terms of the geography of innovation performance in Ireland there is little clear justification for the BMW/S&E regionalisation and no clear justification for any differentiation in policy or innovation support regimes between S&E and BMW regions. More important is the North-South differential with NI lagging behind the S&E and BMW regions on almost every indicator examined primarily due to innovation performance by plants in the 10-19 employee sizeband.