Commune Government as a Creator of Local Relations – The Local Innovation Context

Subject and purpose of work: The objective of the study is to characterise the status and nature of local authorities’ relations with local communities and to assess the importance of local relations in the process of strengthening local innovation.

Materials and methods: The survey method was employed in the research and a questionnaire was sent to heads of communes /mayors via electronic means. The research material consisted of 105 questionnaire forms.

Results: There is a perceived imbalance in the development of interactions with social and economic actors to the disadvantage of interactions with economic sector representatives. Increasing local innovation rooted in the economic dimension of the development processes of the analysed local systems has been revealed to be of a relatively lesser importance. Local Action Groups are a major contributor to the development and innovation process, mainly in the social dimension. Local relations are not perceived by the representatives of local authorities as particularly important factors of regional innovation.

Conclusions: The analysis of the local systems revealed a need to increase the scale of activity of local government representatives as part of developing relations with the economic sector. Opportunities should be sought arising from building local partnerships aimed at the implementation of pro-innovative, multi-stakeholder projects, which will have a greater capacity to influence local development processes.