Abstract
Since the early 1980s, there have been increasing attempts to link policies for science & technology to ones for regional economic development. The term "regional science & technology policy" has come to be used in Japanese science & technology policy documents to highlight connections between the hitherto distinct fields of policy and to emphasize the policy initiative as a base for sustainable regional competitive advantage. In this article, we examine why and how this sort of policy shift has occurred in Japan, and ask whether or not this has induced a true change in policy paradigms. In comparison with the Japanese case, policy changes over the last decades in the EU and the US are illustrated where a significant turn in policy thinking can be identified : from "science-park paradigm" to "learning-region paradigm". The article argues that these policy shifts need to be analyzed as a series of learning and part of the processes on innovation in policy formulation.
