INNOVATION IN RURAL PLACES - CONDITIONS AND BARRIERS - VRI Sogn og Fjordane

Sogn og Fjordane (SFj) is a region with many small rural or peripheral communities. The rurality gives the region distance challenges with regard to innovation. Both in public sector and in the business sectors not enough attention has been given to the i nnovation challenges. In the struggle to take steps up the 'innovation ladder' the region is seeking more knowledge about conditions and barriers for the predominantly rural system of innovation in the region. Theories on regional innovation is perceived to not sufficiently describe the dynamics of the current innovation systems.The VRI-coalition want to know more about the existing innovation system, development of new innovation networks and how their actors and networks interact with each other. Our hypothesis based on the literature study and own research is that Sogn og Fjordane do not fall into the traditional innovation system classifications. We will: Investigate what kind of innovations system we have in Sogn og Fjordane and its characteristics regarding links within the system and to external knowledge organisations, its ability to mobilise and sustain the activity in the system and to understand the dynamics of the relations between the actors in the innovation activities and the knowledge fl ow. It is a grounded approach studying what is there are how it is functioning. The research project divided in five work packages, but they interact closely throughout the project. WP 1: Data collection and literature research WP 2: Analysis WP 3: Di scussion and conclusion WP 4: Publication WP 5: Project management