Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Map 12.1
Y2008 WIPO patent applications by inventors in three quartiles high, middle and low
(
Source
: The author)
show the distribution of patent intensity, (a major indicator of innovativeness) for
NUTS 2 regions in Europe (2000-2008). Regions with high levels of patents and
patent applications would be expected to have high levels of innovation
4
and a
strong correlation with innovativeness. While NUTS 2 regions do not necessarily
contain clusters, they are the regional ecosystems within which geographic clusters
exist.
Map
12.1
displays patent applications by region for 2008 where the NUTS
2 regions have been sorted into three groups (high, medium and low patent
production). Those with high levels of patents are in red, low levels in green and
middle in yellow. Regions that lie mostly in the former area called Western Europe
(South East England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria,
Northern Italy and Denmark and the South of Sweden and West Central Finland in
4
Patents are not an ideal measure of innovativeness and it would be ideal to have measures for
which there are not so many caveats. However, all that is readily available from archival sources is
the patent data.
