innovation spaces in areas that are, we might say, technology-free, occur early in the literature, but are still the minority view. Most of the literature on technopoles provides us with information on the mechanisms put in place, usually by public bodies, to generate a local culture, an innovation-producing environment. By highlighting a series of factors conducive to the creation of innovation, it differs from the literature on innovative environments, which seeks to determine how the “environment” is likely to innovate on the basis of the existing fabric (and in particular on the basis of a long-standing local culture, the history of the actors involved, etc.).
1.2.2. A spontaneous and innovative environment conducive to a “technological atmosphere”?
In the mid-1980s, regional and industrial economies differentiated between, on the one hand, “the regions that are winning”, to use the title of Benko and Lipietz’s book literally (Benko and Lipietz 1992), and on the other hand, those that are losing. The concentration, or otherwise, of research and development activities thus appears to be decisive. The European Research Group on Innovative Environments (Groupe de Recherche Européen sur les Milieux Innovateurs, GREMI) is investigating some 15 regions in Europe in a comparative approach in order to answer the question of why are some regions developing while territories with large manufacturers are in progressive decline. In this perspective, the analysis grid becomes the notion of environment. Linked to the life sciences, its definition is understood as “a set of external factors that act in a permanent or lasting way on living beings” (Coppin 2002, p. 32). Cangilhem emphasizes the predominance of the deterministic dimension in the notion of environment developed in biology (Cangilhem 2000). This systemic character is largely revisited in the concept of the innovative environment, insofar as the authors consider that innovation is no longer the product of single enterprises, but of the social, economic and political factors necessary for the innovation process. GREMI’s authors combine an industrial analysis with a spatial analysis of innovation and base this on three axes (Camagni and Maillat 2006): the technological paradigm (the capacity of the enterprise to develop a technology with a view to differentiating itself from its environment), the organizational paradigm (the capacity of the enterprise to establish relationships with the other actors in its environment) and the territorial paradigm (the capacity of the enterprise to identify and take advantage of the attributes of its territory: know-how, competencies, as well as institutions, etc.).
One of the best known examples is the study of the Jura Arc (Maillat et al. 1992), which analyzes the transition from an industrial district centered on the watchmaking industry to a technological district focused on microtechnology. In this transformation, the role of the environment is highlighted insofar as innovation has taken place on the basis of the existing fabric: a shift from mechanical to electronic skills, the gradual integration of electronic products from watchmaking into printed circuit components, etc. (Pfister and Nemeti 1995, p. 29). In this regard, Benko tells us that innovative enterprises do not pre-exist in local environments, but are secreted by them (Benko 2007). Gradually, local training courses are adjusting the content of their teaching to this reconversion, such as the Lausanne Polytechnic, the Swiss Laboratory for Watchmaking Research and the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology. This adjustment is also favored by the environment, that is, the local industrial culture and the mobility of people on the labor market.
While Marshall spoke of an industrial atmosphere in his works on the district, theories on the environment tend to show that a technological atmosphere conducive to innovation can exist in some fashion within a territory. Among these works on the concentration of technological activities, divergences appear on the relevant spatial scale of such systems: from very localized business parks (Bernardy and Boisgontier 1988) to regional innovation systems (Cooke 2001) and urban innovation systems (Grossetti 2001).
Ultimately, all of these configurations can be understood according to the concept of “local innovation systems” (Gilly and Grossetti 1993), namely:
A set of organizations (companies, research centers, universities, etc.) and individuals producing technological innovation on the basis of regular research and development activities within a given area (Grossetti 1995, p. 4).
The 1980s were therefore conducive to the research into the phenomenon of concentration of technological activities by social scientists, who linked it to the transition from industrial to cognitive capitalism.
1.2.3. The era of cognitive capitalism: the race for creativity of individuals and territories
Just as some observers attributed the emergence of industrial districts to a broader economic paradigm shift, some literature sees the changes of the 1970s and 1980s as a shift from industrial to cognitive capitalism, that is:
In this new form of capitalism, the cognitive and intellectual dimension of work becomes dominant, and the central issues of capital development and some forms of property development are directly related to the transformation of knowledge into a fictitious commodity (Vercellone 2008, p. 72).
From then on, this economy would be based, not on knowledge, but on its exploitation, becoming, like information, a property in its own right. Moulier-Boutang, with reference to Karl Polanyi, believes that the new great transformation is embodied in cognitive capitalism, through global financialization and the digital revolution resulting from NICTs (Moulier Boutang 2007, p. 72). In this context, knowledge, creation and invention, which Moulier-Boutang synthesizes in the concept of immaterial work, are at the center of the mode of production. André Gorz, a philosopher in cognitive capitalism, draws up a non-exhaustive list of common goods that are ultimately usurped by the labor, privatization and commodification of this capitalism: biodiversity and common spaces, either urban or natural; genetic heritages; cognitive, cultural, affective and communicative resources of individuals; living knowledge in general, the product of cooperation and human interaction (Gollain 2010, p. 552). Thus, Gorz considers that cognitive capitalism is the crisis of capitalism. Having lost its relevant categories, capitalism seeks to surpass itself by exploiting an abundant resource, human intelligence, in order to produce scarcity (Gorz 2003, pp. 81–82). We have entered a capitalism that mobilizes competition through intensive innovation, in which the cognitive and creative capacities of individuals are at the service of an increased search for innovative products (Hatchuel et al. 2002, p. 32). It is therefore believed to have the power to counteract major trends, such as the relocation of industrial jobs or, to use the accepted expression, to slow down the “deindustrialization” of France (Guillaume 2008, p. 296) by converting industrial basins into valleys of knowledge. The logic of post-Fordist specialization and the production of scarcity linked to the development of cognitive capitalism are thus at the heart of local policies, which are seen as genuine “remedies for industrial decline”.
In addition, in the early 1990s, there was a rapid spread of management theories from across the Atlantic, which developed a reading of the territory in terms of competition. They observed the effects of centripetal forces of agglomeration and at the same time centrifugal forces of international activities. Krugman was particularly interested in the differences between territories based on the positive externalities of agglomeration (Krugman 1991). At the same time, and in the same vein, Michael Porter developed the principle of comparative advantage, the keystone of his cluster concept. He transfers to territories an industrial logic of building assets in a competitive relationship within a market (Porter 1993). Specialization enables a comparative advantage to be put forward. In a capital mobility context, we are witnessing an explosion of competition between territories to attract the most qualified workers and businesses. Advantages are not given, but deliberately constructed (Carré and Levratto 2011, p. 360). From the point of view of economic development policies, this implies a shift from a territorial policy focused on local redistribution issues to a policy focused on externalities and attractiveness issues (Béhar et al. 2013, p. 20).
As early as 1989, David Harvey,
