Incremental versus Radical Change: the Case of the Digital North Denmark

The paper discusses the intended versus realised implications of the Digital North Denmark IT program, DDN. The analysis is partial in the sense that is focused on whether and how the program may have long-term consequences for the development perspectives for the regional Information and Communications Technology industries (ICT). DDN was a regional IT program running 2000-2003 in North Jutland County in Denmark with national government support of € 23 million. The Danish government initiated the program with the aim of further strengthening regions with an already proven ICT capability (Dybkjaer and Lindegaard, 1999, p.96-100). The declared approach was to build on the existing competencies in industry as well as at universities. The national government chose two regions – Ørestaden, a new concentration of knowledge-based institutions near Copenhagen Airport, and North Jutland. The Copenhagen program was basically concentrated on, literally, construction of a new IT University, a new neighbouring science park and a new media centre for the public broadcaster, Danmarks Radio. DDN was, on the other hand, organised as a large-scale experiment based on project-offers within four themes. The code words were to create a 'network society and a 'learning region' – i.e. a much wider level of ambitions , but also a more loose kind of wording, with a certain amount of 'hot air' involved. The participants meant to be project consortia of ideally private firms, public or private organisations as well as regional and municipal government bodies-could get a maximum national government support of one third of the total project sum. The point of departure of the paper is the theories of regional innovation policy based on localised change and user-producer interaction. Innovation policy is public action aimed to influence technical change and other kinds of innovation (Edquist, 2001). An ICT policy program is 'localised', if it is targeted to create incremental change in a region. It aims to reproduce and strengthen existing structures, but does not necessarily imply following deterministic trajectories, since unpredictable changes may 3 occur (Dosi et al., 1988; Boschma, 2004). Likewise is new variety mainly directed and channelled by the existing environment. The challenge is to support the (positive) development path of the regional production system, while avoiding technological and institutional lock-in. It is not sufficient only to learn, but also important to unlearn at the firm as well as at the policymaker level (Lorenzen, 2001). The literature on innovation systems emphasizes interaction …