How to identify reference regions for comparison of innovation and competitiveness

Benchmarking has been deemed useful for the study of regional competitiveness and innovation and is quickly expanding. The aim of this work is the formulation and validation of a method to select the right regions to compare. The proposed method is of general application and can therefore be used by any region across the world wishing to benchmark against others in the field of competitiveness and innovation. This method is carried out in two successive stages. In the first stage, regions with higher innovation and competitiveness than the region under study are identified. In the second, a subset of regions with a resource base similar to the one under study is selected, which makes them suitable for the comparison. The method is validated by applying it to a European region. The results show the validity and robustness of the proposed method.