The role of demand in new regional industrial path development - the food industry in transformation

Research on regional transformation has advanced our understanding on how regional economic change occurs as an outcome of innovation and knowledge creation processes. In this project we aim to gain a better understanding of the role of demand in new regional industrial path development, especially focusing on the transformation of the food sector towards environmentally friendly production. Theory building will depart from accounts on regional industrial path development and regional innovation systems, as well as the work on sociotechnical transitions. In the empirical analysis we will focus on two Swedish regions – Scania and Värmland. We will combine quantitative and qualitative techniques – a large scale survey among food companies and in-depth case studies of innovation processes of environmentally friendly food products.