Innovation, Creativity and Intelligent Territory

Abstract

For the authors, innovation, informed “know-how” and creativity are not only the prime drives behind both
production and competitiveness in business but hold true for Territory as well, as such these are here seen
to be the main springs of any economic growth. The material underpinning for our globalized economy is
thus here thought to be that technological progress fed by computer and communications technology that
permits information support for the productive process, management and distribution and is thus what
makes growth in production happen. For the authors, the ability to generate, gather and put information to
use is the cutting edge the makes those businesses that face up to the call to be ever innovating and ready
to adapt to the changing requirements of both demand and production thrive. Enabled information is thus
here considered to be a basic structuring factor in our new economy and not just in innovation and new
technology output terms but also, and in this they refer to AMIN & COHEDET (2004), but likewise to its inputs
to favour the productive process. The paper thus envisages this information enabled society as the general
context of our new economy and highlights those of its aspects that most characterize it and its global or
local environmental articulation along with its creative economic and informative components. The paper
then addresses the idea of new notions of territory and goes into two of the dominant expressions of these,
namely and fi rst that of intelligent or learner regions and then and second, that of creative cities, in both
pointing up those new factors to territorial competitiveness, underlining in this the relation as between
innovation and territory and what underlies territorial competitive edge. To round the paper out, an analysis
is made of the new stand points, policies, instruments and active elements that contribute to intervention
and production in both Learner Regions and Creative Cities. Special attention is given here to those aspects
having to do with new forms of management and territorial governance and as to how these impinge upon
economic development.