The Creative Cultural Cluster (CCC) of the Calabria region. An application of location quotient and shift share analysis to discover higher education as driver of local economic development

The leading objective of the research project is to foster Competitiveness, Growth and Innovation of the Calabria Region. The strategic goal is the creation of a cluster of universities, such as a Research Park, where will be created economic development and economic growth of the context through the union of the potential of three different universities located in the same region. The Cultural and Creative Cluster (CCC) will include components of entrepreneurship and technology transfer, but, above all, it will be important because it will strengthen the human capital in general. Investments in knowledge and human capital, as distinct from physical capital, create economic growth through the spillover of knowledge; but also economic development if we think about the increasing level of knowledge of the society and other intangibles benefits. The main policy implication is that investment in knowledge and higher education is the best way to stimulate growth and development. Through the university-industry partnership proposed, there will be improvement, especially for joint R&D projects that include both researchers from the university and the business partners. Since the Calabria region is a low-wage low-tech region, with an economy anchored by agriculture, and which ranked near the bottom nationally on most important social and economic indicators, there is growing concern about the brain-drain of university graduates leaving for jobs elsewhere. The concept of the CCC is important to create an innovative Region that would enable the growth of a “New South” replacing the agrarian economy that had been the social and economic model for generations. In fact, another important part of the research, related to the Location Quotient and Shift-Share Analysis applications, will show some useful data of the Calabria region and the other American case studies, indicating that the development may be possibile if the research project will be focused on policy tools that higher education can implement, i.e. entrepreneurship programs, technology innovation, business partnerships, and the importance of technology transfer offices as innovation intermediaries, which play an important role to develop and to accelerate the combination of knowledge and to realize linkages among different entities.