1 From R&D to innovation and economic growth in the EU * by Beñat Bilbao-Osorio and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose Department of Geography and Environment LSE Houghton St London WC2A 2AE e-mail: a.rodriguez-pose@lse.ac.uk b.bilbao-osorio@lse.ac.uk * Beñat Bilbao-Osorio is a graduate researcher at the London School of Economics, and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose is an associate professor of economic geography and Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award holder at the same institution. The authors would like to thank Henry Overman for his comments to an earlier version of this paper. Beñat Bilbao-Osorio is grateful to the Basque Regional Government for financial support during this research. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose wishes to thank the Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award and Philip Leverhulme Prize.