Spatial Distribution of Regional Innovation Growth Capability and Policy Responses

Concerns are mounting over the potential for weak future growth as the Korean economy faces a wide range of structural issues including an aging society, a crisis in key regional industries, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to these concerns, the Korean government has established innovation growth as a national priority. In this essay, we extract regional innovation growth capability indices for 17 municipalities in order to analyze regional variation, spatial distribution, and characteristics of innovation growth capability. Based on this data, we provide recommendations for policy responses that are capable of promoting innovation growth capability. The analysis shows that the polarization in innovation growth capability between the Seoul Capital Area (SCA) and the province of Chungcheong and regions outside the SCA is deepening. This regional disparity in innovation growth capability has the potential to lead to a widening economic divide between regions. In the conclusion of the paper we identify the implications for regional innovation policy carried by the analytical findings.