THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN URBAN INNOVATION ECOSYSTEMS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: AN INTEGRATED DECISION-MAKING FRAMEWORK

Urban innovation ecosystems (UIEs) became a strategic asset to foster urban and regional development, and support and launch knowledge-intensive businesses. A challenge for innovation managers, urban planners, and policymakers is providing well-adapted solutions to sustainably create, induce, and manage UIEs. Typically, the design and induction of the UIE is poorly planned and focused on economic and to a lesser extent, social achievements. This approach does not embrace the complexity of sustainable entrepreneurial regions. We argue that a broader and integrated approach can help stakeholders achieve better results in their decision-making processes. In a balanced way, the approach adopts innovation performance indicators and sustainable development concepts to enhance the critical dimensions of UIEs. We propose an integrated conceptual framework involving strategic, economic, sociocultural, environmental and institutional perspectives. The framework emerged from a methodology described in the Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicators by the OECD and the problem-based research method. We employed the framework to evaluate the UIE of Curitiba City in Brazil. The results indicate that the model presented a good fit to help various stakeholders make better decisions.