Innovation dynamics in rural areas: contributions to capture and measure innovation, valuing territorial specificities

Doutoramento em Gestão Interdisciplinar da Paisagem - Instituto Superior de Agronomia / Universidade dos Açores / Universidade de Évora

Rural areas are, in general, not perceived as innovative areas, in spite of an increasing multifunctionality related to new activities, a growing diversity of innovations and innovators (from individual to large businesses and non-profit organisations and practising all types of activities) and a wider range of rural resources. But the rural innovation patterns and dynamics and their relationship with territorial specificities, such as local knowledge and local resources, are not captured by the current framework to identify and measure innovation, based on the Oslo Manual, and thus are undervalued as well as is undervalued their contribution for the rural economies. The research undertaken in this thesis, through the analysis of the rural innovation patterns, uncovered unsuspected rural resources and evidenced their relation and their contribution to clusters of rural innovators and the related innovations. The research included also the design of a rural innovation indicators system able to measure the innovation processes implemented by all the types of organisations settled in rural areas and highlighted the need for an alternative framework capable to gather an inclusive picture of the innovation patterns and to value the territorial specificities whose inputs for innovation shape the competitive advantages of these regions