The Nordic countries have a quite different urban structure and social systems than the USA. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden may then constitute a critical test of the empirical reach of Richard Florida's much cited creative class thesis beyond its empirical basis in the USA. This paper employs comparative statistics to examine the importance of the quality of place in attracting members of the creative class to Nordic city regions, and it analyses the role of the creative class for regional economic development. Florida's original study focused only on city regions with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Our statistical analyses mainly support Florida's results with regard to these larger Nordic city regions. The paper, however, also analyses smaller city regions, which are important in the Nordic urban structure. The findings are clearly less supportive for these smaller regions, which mean that the original creative class approach has to be considerably refined when used in the Nordic context.Regional growth, creative class, Nordic countries,

O pen innovation platforms (OIPs) as a new tool fostering the convergence of innovation, education, and research activities have been gaining popularity over the course of recent years. Innovative activities are evolving towards more agile and user-driven processes. OIPs are the key mechanism for orchestrating these processes, providing a qualitatively new space for the interactions between science, education, and innovation. Platform actors have the opportunity to share knowledge and use the urban environment as a 'living lab'. Using the case of Tampere (Finland), the paper explores OIPs' role in the orchestration of joint innovation projects

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PostprintThis is the accepted version of a paper published in European Planning Studies. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proof-corrections or journal pagination. Citation for the original published paper (version of record):Kautonen, M., Pugh, R., Raunio, M. (2017) Transformation of regional innovation policies: from 'traditional' to 'next generation' models of incubationEuropean Planning Studies, 25(4): 620-637Abstract. This paper explores a widely-employed instrument of regional innovation policy: the innovation incubator. It proposes that incubation approaches are moving away from a "traditional" approach strongly premised of physical infrastructure and high-technology, to a more interactive, participatory, and social mode of innovation, in line with broader developments in innovation policy and theory. To practically illustrate this shift, we take two cases: a "traditional" style of incubation in Wales, UK, and a "next generation" incubation programme in Finland. This paper reflects on incubators as a mode of regional innovation policy, both past developments and future trends, to ensure that new policies and programmes learn from best (and indeed, worst) practice and build on, rather than replicate, past approaches.

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