Suchergebnisse

It is commonly argued in the literature on regional innovation that regions must continuously develop new economic activities to compensate for economic decline. If a region manages to diversify from an existing path, it can sustain long-term economic development. One of the measures taken to increase these types of opportunities and to avoid lock-in is to stimulate a closer relationship and collaboration between universities and industry partners. However, we know little about the formation and investigation of successful university-industry relationships in regions outside metropolitan areas. This paper seeks to fill this research gap by investigating how different dimensions of cognitive, organizational, social and geographical proximity facilitate or hinder innovation processes in collaborations between industry and universities in peripheral regions. We find that social proximity, combined with high organizational proximity, overcomes the barriers presented by low geographical proximity. Social proximity compensates for thin regional structures with few high-tech firms, a lack of knowledge producers and a weak support system. An important policy implication is that stimulating collaboration within areas of expertise possessed by university and industry partners create potential for innovation.

A common argument for the nomination of the Romanian city of Sibiu as European Capital of Culture 2007 by the European Commission is the actual local multiculturalism, which makes the city seem somehow different when regarding the more general ethnic background in Romania. The aim of this article is therefore to map the local multiculturalism and identify its limits. The conclusion is that the local context is multicultural in fact, yet some ethnic tensions are to be taken into account. These tensions are rather symbolic and still weak, and are related to the way one might conceive local public space. The findings not only confirm the initial supposition, but they could become a starting point for a future comparative analysis of ethnic contexts in Romania.

This thesis deals on integration of ASEAN. The primary objective of this thesis is to find out the potential of ASEAN to be politically and economically integrated like EU, and the kind of difficulties it may face in a mid way. Since EU is a pioneer and benchmark for any integration and ASEAN takes EU as a reference, I choose EU as a base to compare the progress of ASEAN. As for the theoretical aspect, integration theory and its importance in global scenario is discussed. The research sought after the way ahead for ASEAN. This study is based on a comparative analysis of the development of both EU and ASEAN. The information and literature needed for the thesis will be collected from open source, which is easily accessible to all. After analyzing the historical background, present development and future prospect, I think ASEAN is turning out to be the successful regional cooperation. Even though ASEAN took reference from EU in its development, It don´t need to be like EU. Being the cooperation from different group of differently diversified nations, It can pave its own way forward and can lay good precedent for other upcoming regional co-operations. ; M-IR