Regional industrial policy for the manufacturing revolution: enabling conditions for complex transformations

In this article, we argue that regional industrial policy has a key role to spur socio-economic development. Industrial policy promotes structural changes, which are rooted in productive transformation, led by the expansion of collective capabilities. Today, both globalisation and the fourth industrial revolution are inducing substantial structural changes, which regional industrial policy can favour and orientate. Our analysis is rooted in complex system theory, highlighting four main elements of regional industrial policy, that provide enabling conditions for the adaptation and evolution of the regional system. These arguments are illustrated in the case of the Emilia Romagna region in Italy.