ABSTRACTReduced growth rates and accelerated structural change of the world economy since the 1970s have led to a shift in emphasis from growth‐oriented to innovation‐oriented regional policy in many countries. A question of increasing relevance for regional analysis and regional policy in this connection is the identification of the factors (locational or other) which determine the spatial distribution of innovations for regional development. After reviewing some previous analyses of the location factors relevant for the emergence of high technology industries, this paper proposes the hypothesis that the ambiguous and often contradictory results of these earlier studies are because most of them test unicausal, linear relationships and neglect the synergetic interaction between various determinants of innovation. Three empirical case studies of “regional innovation complexes” in peripheral areas, consisting mainly of synergetic regional interaction systems, are presented. They illustrate three different types of social organization: a cooperative type, a private‐sector type, and a mixed, “third‐sector” type. These case studies show that innovation can emerge not only in core but also in peripheral areas if the basic elements of synergetic regional interaction