지역혁신체계(RIS)의 단계별 진화와 혁신효과: 정책의 누적 효과와 지역 혁신체계 관점을 중심으로

초록

Despite sustained public investment, the empirical effects of university-centered regional innovation policies are often difficult to identify using conventional evaluation methods, and prior studies have frequently interpreted weak or statistically insignificant results as evidence of policy ineffectiveness. However, this study argues that such findings may instead reflect a mismatch between the long-term, cumulative nature of these policies and short-term, change-oriented evaluation frameworks. Using a region-year panel dataset for Korea from 2009 to 2022, the study examines the LINC and LINC+ programs by constructing cumulative indicators of policy funding and university participation and analyzing these alongside regional structural characteristics and knowledge-based performance measures, including R&D expenditures and patent outcomes, through cross-sectional analyses, fixed-effects panel models, and growth rate specifications. The results indicate that cumulative policy variables are positively associated with regional performance levels in cross-sectional analyses, but their effects are largely absorbed by regional fixed effects or become statistically insignificant in growth-rate models. Rather than suggesting policy ineffectiveness, this pattern implies that university-centered innovation policies operate through long- term, structurally embedded processes that are not readily captured by short-term evaluation approaches, underscoring the need for evaluation frameworks that better reflect cumulative and structural policy effects over time.

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