The Scientific Trajectory of the French School of Proximity: Interaction- and Institution-based Approaches to Regional Innovation Systems

Abstract

The multi-faceted concept of proximity is often used nowadays in many theoretical and empirical analyses. It mainly originates in some French regional scientists' attempt, in the early 1990s, to develop new conceptual and methodological avenues with a view to the study of the industrial and spatial dynamics. The wide diffusion of the resulting research findings is explained by the fact that these scholars realized early on that it was in their interest to collectively structure their works through the setting-up of a research group. The present paper sets out to outline the scientific and institutional trajectories of the French group “Proximity Dynamics”, while underlining the progressive broadening of its scientific and institutional dimensions, as well as the main theoretical research fields these trajectories have permitted to investigate.