Policies for development of science parks in less-innovative regions

Nowadays, the establishment of science parks is a basic strategy for promotion of regional businesses and establishing innovative regions. Policy makers often utilize theories of innovative regions and count less on local points of strength and weaknesses. Science parks are part of national/regional innovation systems, so it seems rational to expect that the development policies for such parks should have a consistency with the development policy of the host regions. The assumption in this paper is that regional innovation policies which suitable for less-innovative regions serveay good guides for the development of science parks of Iran. In this paper, the literature on innovation barriers and various policies suggested for less-innovative regions are studied, with the aim of extending these to science parks. Iran is provinces are clustered on the basis of innovation-related data,. Three groups of clusters are identified: fragmented metropolitan regions (including two provinces), locked-in industrial regions (including eight provinces) and peripheral regions (including 18 provinces). Finally, for each of these, some science park development policies are suggested. Keywords: Regional economic development, Science parks, Innovative regions, Innovation policy.