Towards a problem-oriented regional industrial policy: possibilities for public intervention in framing, valuation and market formation

Abstract

Thinking about regional industrial policies remains focused on the supply of new knowledge, and recently also on grand challenges and missions, but takes problems, demand and market formation largely for granted. In this paper we build on policy sciences, sociology of markets and valuation approaches to explore the place-based roles of agency, institutions, networks and values in discursive processes of problem-framing and market creation. We identify a number of choices and trade-offs in the processes, practices and constitutive elements of market creation that in turn suggest new possibilities for more societal problem-oriented regional industrial policies.