Editorial. Knowledge-based dynamics of local development: a position paper

Abstract: The debate on the nature and dynamics of local development in both academic and policy circles has now moved from the earlier and then traditional focus on endogenous and context-specific assets to analysing more and more the role of the knowledge assets and their dynamics for grounding local systems’ capacity to perform sustainable development and value creation for their key-stakeholders. However, the research on this subject appears still widely open to new theoretical and empirical contributions. This position paper provides the background for this debate: specifically, we analyse – through an excursus of the issues related to the local and regional development – some theoretical and policy reasons explaining the relevance of identifying and exploiting knowledge-based dimensions of value. The paper concludes with a call for investigating what are the new knowledge dimensions and traits to be further and better developed and managed.