Open Innovation, SMEs and Regional Development: Evidence from the UK

This paper seeks to contribute to the literature on open innovation via the development of an index of open innovation that is much more complete than earlier work and allows the examination of open innovation across a variety of dimensions. The analysis is conducted using Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data for UK regions. The UK regions fall into four performance groups. The first group of open innovation leaders includes firms located in the regions of South East England, East England, and Wales, with innovation performance well above that of the UK average. The second group of open innovation followers includes firms located in the regions of East Midlands, West Midlands, South West England, and North East England, with an open innovation performance close to that of the UK average. The third group of moderate open innovators includes firms located in the regions of Northern Ireland and Yorkshire and The Humber. The final group of modest open innovators includes firms located in the regions of London and Scotland.