Drivers of innovation: A comparative study on innovation in European cities by means of multi-criteria analysis

This paper addresses the issue of innovative behaviour of firms in an urban European context. It aims to identify key factors for innovation at the lo cal level, based on micro survey information from firms. In seeking promine nt explanatory variables for entrepreneurial innovation in various classes of European cities, a particular multivariate method, Regime analysis, is e mployed. This special type of multi-criteria method appears to be a fruitfu l tool for comparative analysis and generates a wide range of interesting e mpirical results on innovation factors in European cities.