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The Basque Country in northern Spain is considered one of the success cases in Europe in terms of managing structural change (OECD, 2011). With an economy long thriving based on heavy industries such as shipbuilding, steel, and machine tools, it plummeted into a significant depression in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of the international steel crisis. The opening of the Spanish economy after the end of the Franco regime in 1978 furthermore left domestic firms struggling to compete internationally. By 1985, the once wealthy Basque country had among the highest unemployment rates in the European Union (OECD, 2011).

Much has changed in the region ever since. Today, the Basque country is one of the most prosperous and innovative areas in Spain and counts among the top 25 percent of OECD regions in terms of average household income (OECD, 2020a). Important knowledge intensive clusters such as aeronautics have emerged while traditional sectors have been strengthened. Bilbao, the largest city in the region, has become a synonym for successful urban regeneration with the famous Guggenheim Museum having attracted more than 20 million visitors since its opening in 1997. 1