Knowledge-based urban environments and entrepreneurship: Inside EU cities

Abstract This paper aims to answer the following research question: does the knowledge city environment stimulate entrepreneurship? To answer this question, we develop a framework and multidimensional indexes to better explain the different dimensions of a ‘knowledge city’ and their relation to urban entrepreneurship, defined in terms of new and digital ventures. The analysis was performed on a sample of 60 cities, including all capital cities in the EU28 and 32 non-capital cities in the EU that are considered important knowledge hubs. The presence of cities from EU28 countries is important to foster the entrepreneurship attitude in each national context. Our study makes a significant contribution to the literature by providing a new approach to understand the factors affecting knowledge cities and to identify the city profiles that are key for the development of urban-level entrepreneurship, thus providing a number of important insights for academics and urban policy makers.