Structural dynamics of regional innovation patterns in Europe: the role of inventors’ mobility

The role of inventors’ mobility on the innovative capacity of the host region has largely been highlighted, measured and empirically proved. In this work, the perspective is a rather different one. The paper assesses the role that the flow of inventors and high-skilled technicians has on the region’s capacity to modify its structural mode of innovation. By applying the regional patterns of innovation framework in a dynamic perspective, it is shown that inventors’ inflows across space produce structural dynamics in the mode regions innovate.