Mapping local innovation and productive systems in South Africa

This research project focuses on how productive and innovative capabilities of selected systems are acquired and developed. This includes the investigation of how knowledge (including tacit knowledge) is assimilated and used by firms and diffused within systems; the nature of interactions among actors; the competence structure of the system; as well as policies and other incentives that can facilitate the development of such capabilities.

This project will help to identify and map innovation systems across various municipal, regional and national levels. It will bring the conceptual insights of innovation systems together with complementary tools, such as foresight and simulation modelling, in order to develop a vision for development that takes into account what takes place within an innovation system.