Anchor tenants and regional innovation systems: the aircraft industry

The concept of anchor tenant was advanced to explain the emergence of regional systems of innovation. The anchor tenant is an organisation, often a large innovative firm or a research university or public laboratory that produces knowledge externalities in the region where it is located. The anchor produces such effects by spinning off new companies and attracting other ones. This paper argues that the dynamics of the anchor may help to explain the subsequent evolution of the region. It also maintains that anchor tenants are attracted to or created in regions that possess some favourable conditions and that such conditions are industry specific.