A Model to Test How Diversity Affects Resilience in Regional Innovation Networks

Research about resilience on complex systems has been commonly addressed from a structural point of view, relating this concept to the preservation of the connectivity against the suppression of individual nodes or individual links. This perspective coherently encompasses the analysis of resistance of networked infrastructures to structural damage (e.g. power grids, roads and communication networks) but not necessarily other scenarios (e.g. socio-ecological systems). Here we associate the resilience concept to the capability of a social organization to keep acceptable levels of functionality against external socio-economic disrupting factors that do not imply necessarily destruction of existing links. As a particular case of study, we show how diversity of the organizational characteristics improves resilience of regional innovation systems to uncertain socio-economic situations. Particularly speaking, we will deal with models were network structure is as important as the diversity of behaviours in agents decisions. We reanalyze the conclusions of a classical text about regional development (Saxenian 1994), comparing the evolution of two industrial districts (Silicon Valley and Boston's Route 128), by first making a qualitative analogy in terms of resilience and, second, building up a simplified model of innovation systems that support quantitatively our argumentation. The methodology presented in this paper, based on a simple network model designed from the qualitative conclusions of previous works about industrial networks, allows us to translate abstracted theoretical evidences on networks in more specified scenarios, and can contribute fruitfully to this line of research.