Green human capital and how it affects cleantech innovativeness

Abstract

The green technology industry is an emerging sector worldwide and in the Netherlands. The Cleantech Regio is a Dutch region which aims to specialize in this sector, but policy makers encountered the problem that the regional level of green human capital was not sufficient to reach extensive cleantech innovation. This research aims to build a framework to analyze how an increase of green human capital leads to cleantech innovativeness and what can be done by policymakers to help this process. To build this framework, multiple methods are used. Patents, demographics and policy reports are studied and linked to relevant scientific literature to discuss the case of the Cleantech Regio in detail. The results are presented in a SWOT-analysis to provide an overview of the situation. Reoccurring themes in the strengths and opportunities are close triple helix collaborations and the creation of innovative clusters, while weaknesses and threats are for example identified in a lack of focus on the cleantech sector and insufficient green education. The SWOT-analysis and subsequent conclusion and discussion helps policy makers with improving their green innovative capacity with a green human capital approach and for future research this paper serves as a guideline for further cleantech innovativeness analyses.