Abstract:

Modifying knowledge into innovation, as more significant process for stimulating smart regional growth, can be organized within the framework ‘education-research-innovation’. However the systemic approach from education towards innovation through research is more suitable for countries which have proven their ability to be at the fore of creation and expansion of new technologies. Countries, which are not leaders and creators of new technologies should be able to emulate. Moreover, often the process of emulation is altered towards pursuing indicators reached by more successful countries in the fields of innovation and not to promoting their own success what partly weakens the chain ‘education-research-innovation’. Therefore the issue on inverse approach as ‘innovation-research-education’ is topical. Coming out of usual approach would help to identify and understand stimulus for regional growth in case when innovation is adopted and some support for its application and development is necessary. Education in this case is not a foundation and stimulus for innovation, but a tool for emulation. This means that the process of smart growth begins from innovation and then moves towards education sometimes even avoiding research phase. The article considers stimulus for regional growth, taking into account both approaches with special attention to the chain 'innovation-research-education'.

Keywords:

Stimulus for regional growth, innovation, research, education.