- Introduction
Knowledge spill-over effects (KSE) are based on the fact that subjects obtain benefits from the knowledge generated by other entities (e.g. other enterprises or public institutions) without spending money. They take the form of cooperation between researchers, scientific staff mobility, informal exchanges of ideas, publication of unwanted information, etc. KSEs are increasingly regarded as important levels of economic policy (that´s why municipalities support the spill-over effects from public budgets as state aid), there have been very few attempts so far to investigate the impact and efficiency of knowledge on local- and region-level economic development. Therefore, the key role of KSE and knowledge networks in contemporary regional and local development requires the design of new approaches to their mapping and analysing. The objective of the project is to design such models (analytical tools) of KSE at regional and local levels, which will model complex relations among regional and local actors by using methods of soft-computing and systems theory.