The Capital Systems Framework is a theoretical and methodological approach to knowledge-based value systems resulting in a taxonomy of organizational and social capital. The underlying rationale for this taxonomy is to satisfy the formal requirements of a value-production system, i.e., that it be complete, consistent and homogeneous. This taxonomy builds upon other efforts to identify and value collective individual capital at either urban, national or regional levels . Known as Capital Sistem, this taxonomy identifies the basic capital elements of productive systems and “metacapitals”: those other forms of capital not productive themselves but signficantly leveraging the system’s overall capacity. Figure 1 describes this general structure.

Despite the young age of the Knowledge Cities field, a number of comparative frameworks have already been proposed to assess the relative importance of different development factors relative to specific explanatory and technical approaches (Ergazakis et at, 2004, 2006 a, b, c; Bañegil and Sanguino, 2006; Martínez, 2006). Amongst these approaches, the stratregic framework provided by the identification, valuation and systematic development of the city’s traditional and knowledge capital in an integrated way, seems to be gaining support.

The recently founded New Club of Paris –devoted to the valuation and development of collective Intellectual Capital- and its leading role in the Knowledge Capital Accounts of countries and regions, as well as an independent assessment of the Knowledge-based Developments potential of 40 cities around the world carried out by Price Waterhouse Coopers, constitute testimonies of this trend . The Capital System Framework is a basic economic model since it involves an assessment of the value base on which the future development of a human system (organization, city, region, country) is made possible through a recombination or tradding of actually existing capitals, both traditional and knowledge-based.

This section contains some introductory works both in English and Spanish addressing different aspects of this framework. A few of these are earlier versions of articles later published as journal papers or book chapters.

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