Regional state innovation in peripheral regions: enabling Lapland’s green policies

How do sparsely populated regions innovate in green policies? What enables or limits such innovation? The policy literature often focuses on core regions, while territorial innovation models have long ignored regional state innovation. In this article we examine the drivers of public sector policies peripheral considered unequipped. data come from case study Finnish Lapland's Smart Specialisation Strategy relation to promoting a forest-based bioeconomy. context where climate change has become major global challenge, and sustainable development an additional responsibility for local governments, contributes understanding rationales perspective. Drawing institutional economic geography, argue that top-down approaches (Smart Specialisation) combined with scale place-specificity (personal connections, environmental fragility, political will natural resources endowments) play important role driving governments when translating implementing policies.