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Abstract
The importance of promoting innovation has been elevated up to a status of official standard since the Lisbon European Summit in 2000. Here research and development (R&D) has been singled out as an essential element of the foundation on which innovation could be built. R&D has been a growing area of investigation namely at level of firms micro studies aimed at uncovering firms’ innovation capability. At the macro level, the relevance of R&D for countries’ innovation capability has been, in a dynamic perspective, more often presumed rather than effectively tested. This latter limitation is, to a large extent, explained by the paucity of aggregated continuous time series on innovation indicators specifically those based on R&D expenditures. This paper aims at filling this gap by providing an estimate of the Portuguese innovation capability over the two last four decades based on the accumulated R&D efforts. Such indicator, albeit preliminary, will desirably endorse new investigation on the Portuguese catching-up process and, in this way, might inform present and future public programs related to R&D policies in particular and innovation policies in general.

Abstract
Being political entrepreneurship an issue that has received a high distinction in literature, its empirical evidence is scarce largely derived from limitations of operationalizing the concept. In this article we operationalize local political entrepreneurship considering three main dimensions: 1) fundraising, 2) the possession and/or construction of infrastructure to support business and social activities, and 3) the supply of support activities and services required for activities business and social. Based on information gathered from 108 Portuguese municipalities, we quantified the overall political entrepreneurship and in the three dimensions mentioned presenting a ranking of municipalities and the corresponding NUTS III regions. Additionally, through the estimation of econometric specifications, we conclude that the local political entrepreneurship has a positive and significant but indirect impact, through the human capital of employed population, on the creation of new businesses, particularly the knowledge-intensive ones. In other words, the impact of entrepreneurial actions by the local political authorities is much higher the greater the proportion of the employed population with higher education in the region. On this basis, it is not enough that local authorities are 'entrepreneurial'; in addition to the public actions of fundraising, construction of infrastructures and promotion of activities for business promotion, one needs to ensure that the region is endowed with an adequate level of absorptive capacity, i.e., investment in human capital and R&D activities.

Abstract
Interest in the characterization and evolution of science has sparked a vast amount of literature. The manner in which this field of knowledge is depicted is highly diversified, giving rise to different styles of reporting the history of science. Not with standing the relevance of the subject for a broader understanding of how knowledge is produced, certified and appropriated, a simple and informative framework is missing. Proposing a simple categorization of the methods for assessing the evolution of science, our study highlights the changing process of scientific traditions, portraying the evolution of science as shifting towards hybrid and quantitative methodologies, namely those based on bibliometric techniques, as they arguably rely less on the judgments and perceptions of researchers, and have a higher degree of certainty. © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012.

Abstract
Traditionally, studies on the influence and impact of knowledge-producing organisations have been addressed by means of strict economic analysis, stressing their economic impact to a local, regional or national extent. In the present study an alternative methodology is put forward in order to evaluate the international scientific impact and influence of a knowledge-producing and -diffusing institution. We introduce a new methodology, based on scientometric and bibliometric tools which complement traditional assessments by considering the influence of a R&D institution when looking at the scientific production undertaken and the recognition of its releVance by its international peer community. Focusing on the most prolific scientific areas of the R&D institution (INESC Porto), and resorting to published scientific work recorded in the Science Citation Index (SCI) we show that the R&D institution has enlarged its international scientific network. The logit estimations demonstrate that the wide geographical influence of INESC Porto scientific research is a result not of its international positioning in terms of coauthorships, but rather a result of the quality of its scientific output. © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2011.