The social value of science and technology parks: a European perspective

Abstract

In recent decades, science and technology parks (STPs) have been contributing to regional development. Different metrics and methods of measuring have been proposed to calculate this positive contribution. In this study we propose in the first place a methodology to calculate the social value (SV) generated by organisations towards STPs. With the collaboration of the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation (IASP), we have created an initial pool (community) of fourteen European STPs who are interested in the topic of SV analysis to test this methodology. We have obtained preliminary results of the social value generated by those fourteen European STPs distributed per each of the relevant STP stakeholders. In addition, we have developed a more detailed study of the STPs located in the region of Lombardy (northern Italy), as a practical application of the methodology presented in the paper. The contribution of the paper to the STP literature is twofold: a new way of calculating the SV generated by STPs based on secondary data is presented, and empirical examples of this methodology are calculated in order to test that methodology.