A scoping review investigating the presence and evolution of literature focusing on regional innovation clusters and systems

Abstract

Regional innovation clusters and systems are a form of collective innovation efforts. There is a large amount of knowledge and technology creation that occurs withing these structures. A globally well-known example is Silicon Valley in the United States of America. This article plans to delve deeper into the concept of regional innovation clusters and systems by looking at what literature exists surrounding these topics. It does this by applying a systematic approach to a scoping review. Data is sourced from abstract and citation databases, namely Web of Science and Scopus. These databases are merged and analysed to identify core documents in the database by applying Bradford’s law, identify influential authors by looking at various metrics. A thematic map is also developed to identify themes that exist in this specific set of literature. The evolution of these themes is also analysed over the years of 2000 to 2021, in the form of four times slices, to identify concepts that surround regional innovation systems, literature gaps or areas where contributions can be made. Concepts identified that occur with regional innovation systems are economic developments, clusters, and knowledge. A literature gap identified is the absence of the discussion of factors related to regional innovation.