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a b s t r a c tThe production renewable energy is a promising sector for social enterprises located in the remote northern communities of Scotland. Community wind power offers a way to generate resources to be reinvested in local development purposes, such as community businesses, social services and infrastructure and communications. In this study, a regional inputeoutput modelling is applied to the analysis of the socio-economic impacts of 11 wind farms of community-based social enterprises located in the Outer Hebrides, Shetland and Orkney. The results show significant socio-economic benefits of re-investing revenues for social purposes. For instance, strategic re-investments of revenues in local social services generate about tenfold additional employment and income impact compared with the impact of wind power production. Our socio-economic analyses find that community-based social enterprises are one promising solution for place-based regional development in the European northern periphery.

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Purpose Public procurement of innovations (PPIs) addresses a specified need of the public-sector customer or aims at fostering private firms’ innovativeness. In an operational sense, issues of information asymmetry and risk sharing between the public agency and the supplier are of paramount importance. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the contract design issues of PPI. Design/methodology/approach Explicit and implicit contracting methods are reviewed, and a conceptual framework is proposed in which procurement characteristics are analyzed, focusing on the dimensions of the supplier’s sensitivity to the procurement risk and the power of implicit contracting methods. Findings Because of its complex nature, applying cost-plus contracts instead of more common fixed-price contracts is advisable in PPI. Originality/value Possible reasons for the more prominent role of contract design in the USA as opposed to the European Union procurement are discussed.

Keywords:Socio-economic impacts Regional inputeoutput modelling Bioenergy Place-based development a b s t r a c tThe regional bioeconomy has great importance for generating socio-economic impacts, especially in sparsely populated resource peripheries. The benefits include increased employment and income and improved security of supply. In this study, the modified regional inputeoutput model of North Karelia, Finland is applied for analysing the socio-economic impacts of a bioenergy-based local development strategy. The results indicate significant socio-economic benefits of a local development strategy based on bioenergy. This benefit is corroborated by approximately 12 million euros in annual income impacts and 280 personnel working years in the district. New stimuli in a currently declining municipality could potentially break negative path dependency. New bioenergy and bioeconomic developments are promising solutions for the construction of place-based regional development in resource peripheries.