Hospitals’ Contribution to the Geographies of Social and Economic Innovation
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Health Care Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 7 July 2025 | Viewed by 1652
Special Issue Editors
Interests: socioeconomic inequalities in mortality; promote health equity; health inequalities
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: human geography; economic geography; urban planning
Interests: human geography; economic geography; geography of innovation
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue seeks to collect a set of papers that present and discuss the important role played by hospitals in the health, scientific and innovation networks as cognitive translators, social blenders, organizational and institutional ‘bridgers’ and as the geographical anchors of the multiscalar networks of social and economic innovation in order to clarify the essential role of hospitals in accelerating the health innovation process and their contribution to the formation, growth and consolidation of health innovation dynamics, regional economic growth and well-being.
According to translational science, hospitals play an essential role in health innovation networks; however, they remain a hidden actor in the health innovation ecosystem. They play an active role: to shorten the distance between basic research and clinical application, to speed up the implementation of innovations in clinical practice and to help anticipate the identification of problems for which no sufficient answers are found in standard clinical tools and therapies. They are part of two-way networks from research bench to bedside and from bedside (or even people’s everyday lives) to bench and take part in the innovation process, sometimes acting as contributors thereto. Population ageing, migration, climate change and technological and ecological transitions bring new challenges to health. According to the geography of innovation, the geographical element is central to the process. The geographical proximity between hospitals, university laboratories, companies and, of course, families, facilitates this two-way collaboration in health innovation processes. Thus, one of the ways to express the geography of innovation in health is the tendency to cluster innovation activities in human health, the other being the geography of multiscale innovation network. The fight against health inequalities involves removing barriers to disease prevention and health promotion, for which it is crucial to mitigate potential impacts on the essential conditions for the well-being of the population.
Healthy territories depend on the quality of the physical and built environment and on the quality of and accessibility to services, including local health care and services, green areas, leisure, recreational spaces and, obviously, adequate and safe housing. Contributions are thus not only invited from geography or health sciences, but from all disciplines that can help us to fulfill these goals. Potential topics include but are not limited to:
- the geography of state-of-the-art translational research;
- the role of hospitals and their contribution to creating multidimensional proximity (cognitive, social, organizational, institutional and geographical);
- study cases of successful translation research processes and the multidimensional proximity dynamics enabling them;
- the multiscalar networks connecting different actors enrolled in health innovation processes and their capacity to shorten the cycle of discovery;
- the process of knowledge translation between different actors;
- the role of geographical proximity and the mechanisms of distant interaction during the process of innovation;
- in context of strong social change, the importance of improving well-being and promoting health and healthy territories;
- hospitals’ role in anchoring networks, health innovation dynamics and regional development;
- studies on public policies directed towards improving hospitals’ enrolment in social and economic innovation processes;
- studies concerning healthy governance;
- a participatory and intersectoral governance oriented towards the articulation and development of partnerships with regional agents and locations.
Prof. Dr. Paula Santana
Dr. Teresa Sá Marques
Dr. Hélder Santos
Dr. Rui Gama
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- translational research
- geography of innovation
- well-being
- hospitals
- health innovation networks
- economic and social development
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