REDI: The Regional Entrepreneurship and Development Index Measuring Regional Entrepreneurship

The REDI index developed in this report presents a fresh approach to measuring entrepreneurship in EU regions. Although the systemic approach is long established in Innovation Policy–as encapsulated in the National (and Regional) Systems of Innovation theory, a systemic understanding of entrepreneurship dynamics in countries and regions remains in its infancy. Although entrepreneurship scholars have long since recognized the regulating importance of context on entrepreneurship, the great bulk of both theorizing and empirical research on entrepreneurship has focused on the individual and the firm and ignored the study of the context within which these are embedded. This in spite of the widespread recognition that entrepreneurs do not operate in isolation from their contexts: Instead, the context exercises a decisive influence on who starts new firms, withwhat level of quality and ambition, and with what outcomes. This report builds on recent theoretical developments towards a systemic perspective to entrepreneurship in regions to develop an empirical and normative elaboration of the ‘Systems of Entrepreneurship’ phenomenon. This report argues that a systemic approach to under standing the economic potential of entrepreneurship in EU regions is
particularly important for policy, because policy initiatives address typically system-level gaps and shortcomings.

http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/regional_entrepreneurship_development_index.pdf