A significant forum of scholarly and practitioner-based research has developed in recent years that has sought
both to theorize upon and empirically measure the competitiveness of regions. However, the disparate and
fragmented nature of this work has led to the lack of a substantive theoretical foundation underpinning the
various analyses and measurement methodologies employed. The aim of this paper is to place the regional
competitiveness discourse within the context of theories of economic growth, and more particularly, those
concerning regional economic growth. It is argued that regional competitiveness models are usually implicitly
constructed in the lineage of endogenous growth frameworks, whereby deliberate investments in factors such
as human capital and knowledge are considered to be key drivers of growth differentials. This leads to the
suggestion that regional competitiveness can be usefully defined as the capacity and capability of regions to
achieve economic growth relative to other regions at a similar overall stage of economic development, which
will usually be within their own nation or continental bloc. The paper further assesses future avenues for
theoretical and methodological exploration, highlighting the role of institutions, resilience and, well-being in
understanding how the competitiveness of regions influences their long-term evolution