FRIDA · Fostering Regional Innovation and Development through Anchors and Networks: A Cross Regional Comparison in an Evolving International Context

The FRIDA (‘Fostering Regional Innovation and Development through Anchors and Networks’) project aims to improve regional policy making within the EU, by advancing state of the art understanding of the importance of anchor firms to regional development and cohesion. Anchor firms are known to be increasingly important to regional development as highly entrepreneurial, multi-national firms restructure and relocate in response to the pressures of globalisation. However, there is currently a substantial gap in our understanding of the reasons for their qualitatively different impacts on different regions, how and why they assist the development of networks and capabilities in regions, and what local policies make particular regions attractive, and influence anchor firms to contribute towards more cohesion and even development. By addressing these questions, the FRIDA project aims to both improve understanding and contribute towards the effectiveness of policy making. The outputs of the project are designed to directly help regional policy-making to better anticipate and respond to economic restructuring by helping create regional governance systems that ensure less developed regions level-up to the most developed regions, rather than more developed regions levelling-down in response to the increasing freedom of movement of capital, production and knowledge. In doing so, the project aims to directly address the main points in the call and improve development throughout Europe in a way that is more sustainable, even and socially cohesive.