The importance of human capital strength in regional innovation outputs

Throughout history, human beings who have been in a constant social transformation, have sought to better methods and tried to apply it in order to raise their living standards to better levels and to overcome the difficulties they face. In this transformation chain, which started with primitive society and continued with the information society, people began to discover themselves, understand the value of knowledge and use it. The concepts of innovation and human capital have started to gain importance in these transformations. Today, human capital which benefits both individually and socially is one of the most important sources of innovation. On the way to innovation, new ideas, products, services or developing existing products and creating new business processes are realized through human capital. In addition, other factors used in production are supplied more efficiently with the positive values such as knowledge, skills, experience and dynamism provided by human capital and therefore it leads to the formation of new technologies. Thereby, human capital is seen as a facilitating factor in providing innovation. On the other hand, innovation that supports national development and growth strengthens the national development and competitiveness by developing at the regional level as well as developing at the national level today. Thus, regional innovation systems which is included in innovation systems have started to gain importance in developed and developing countries as economic power and find a place in economic policies. This system which is an important factor in eliminating the imbalances between regions and the disadvantages of a region compared to other regions and increasing the competitiveness of the companies increases the international competitiveness with its human capital and the quality of life. In the light of this information, the main objective of the study is to measure the human capital power in regional innovation outputs in Türkiye. For this purpose, the data used in the study were analyzed by Panel Data Method. According to the findings, it was concluded that R&D personnel, labor with higher education, phd graduates and total health institutions which are considered as human capital proxies have a positive and significant effect on regional innovation in Türkiye. Keywords: Innovation, Regional Innovation Systems, Human Capital, Panel Data Analysis