The belief that the EU should develop a knowledge-based economy (KBE) in response to on-going economic globalisation has formed the backdrop to national Vocational Education and Training (VET) and skills policy in member states since the mid-1990s. In the UK, conventional policy analysis suggests that this requires a better skilled workforce with higher levels of education (Keep and Mayhew, 2009). Learning for the KBE is therefore presented in policy documents in terms of individuals acquiring measurable knowledge or skills, in the form of qualifications. Researchers in the fields of workplace learning (drawing on social theories of learning), work organisation and innovation, and the sociology of work have argued that this focus on individuals is highly problematic as it is contrary to how knowledge and skills are formed and used in sectors and workplaces (Boreham et al., 2002; Guile, 2010; Nijof and Nieuwenhuis, 2007).  This paper argues, however, that in order to take this work further, we need to incorporate the conceptualisations of learning for the KBE that have been developed by scholars in regional studies and economic geography. These writers have developed a variety of territorial innovation models (TIMs) to analyse the learning processes that underpin innovation and knowledge transfer in regional clusters of economic activity (Moulaert and Sekia, 2003). They argue that to understand economic competitiveness in the KBE, we need to look at the ways in which learning by individuals, firms and institutions is linked together and supported in regionalised economic systems. This paper aims to initiate cross-disciplinary dialogue by introducing a theoretical framework from the TIM literature, in particular, the concept of ‘localised learning’ (Maskell and Malmberg, 1999), which is based on the assertion that learning is interactive, context dependent, and can be conceptualised at different scales. The paper addresses the following questions: 1. Why are conventional policy analyses of learning for the KBE problematic? 2. How is learning for the KBE conceptualised in TIMs? 3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach? 4. What are the implications of the insights from TIMs for VET and skills policy in the UK and the EU more generally? 

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