The uneven geography of innovation in Turkey: Visualizing the geography and regional relatedness of patent production

Economic geography studies revealed that regional economies are heavily dependent on path-dependent network-based complexities. Innovation and technology are the key concepts for regional economic growth and the uneven geography of innovation is quite decisive for the regional stability of the countries. In this regard, the network topology of the regional relatedness of patent production is embedded on unequal population cartograms in order to better display the uneven geography of innovation in Turkey. The study reveals that the geography of the patent production has a dynamic pattern that it spreads from patent-producing hubs to their surrounding regions that have never produced. Besides, an increasing variety of classes indicates that new technologies are emerging in some regions. Istanbul covers almost 60% of the patent production of the country. There are around 10 industrialized secondary hub regions existing which the two out of them (Adana and Gaziantep, cities of the east closest to the West and Mediterranean zone) are located in eastern Turkey. Eastern regions have medium size connections with the western hub regions which they are attaching to existing major nodes.