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his paper argues that national innovation infrastructure is closely linked with the scientific output and that some other factors, such as decentralized governance, can in certain combinations with innovation infrastructure lead to a higher scientific output. It demonstrates this by using a set-theoretic fsQCA method to analyze the data on national innovation capacities, fiscal decentralization, and science policy output. Results confirm that while a national innovation infrastructure is a necessary condition for successful scientific output, decentralization in certain, but not all cases leads to successful scientific output and that the paths to a successful scientific output in different countries are diverse.

The paper analyses regional startup ecosystems in South-East Europe and policy measures implemented in individual ecosystems. It shows that different startup ecosystems have different levels of support measures and different levels of success in creating, growing and retaining local startups and attracting startups from other regions. Results show that policy-makers can help create attractive ecosystems and thus create business environments that can greatly enhance the attraction of their ecosystem for domestic startup and attract foreign startups. If successful, this can result in a virtuous circle of constantly increasing attractiveness of a regional startup ecosystem.