Building a Cross-Border Learning Region: Emergence of the North European Oresund Region

Abstract

The learning region has become an important concept among scholars, managers and policymakers. Companies are increasingly stimulated by, and dependent on, the unevenly distributed localized capabilities that enhance learning and innovation. Learning regions are a contemporary consequence of the way companies react to the global opening of markets. Despite the trends towards global integration, there is little evidence to suggest that cross-border economic activities have eliminated deep-seated differences among the advanced industrial economies. It takes generations to build national identities and establish complex national investigation systems favouring growth and prosperity also at a regional level. It takes years of hard work to amalgamate two countries' distinctive innovation systems into one, even when most formal barriers have been eroded. It can take even longer for a common cross-border regional identity to materialize. Only then can the full potential of cross-border synergy begin to be realized. The aim of this book is to investigate the regional linkages between learning and competitiveness using the North European Oresund Region as an illustrative case. In the year 2000, the 16 kilometre long bridge and tunnel will be completed between the cities of Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmo in Sweden, significantly improving the accessibility within an area of thousands of companies and a concentration of research facilities, technological and commercial expertise and educational institutions.