This year's Bio International Convention attracted more than 15,000 attendees, among them an army of economic developers and elected officials hoping to secure investments into the sector. Michal Kaczmarski asked representatives why investors should bet on their locations and whether they see emerging markets as a source of opportunities or competition.

Many investment promotion agencies are just as keen to court start-ups as they are large multinationals, but their approach to attracting these smaller, more fragile companies may benefit from being more hands off than with their larger, established counterparts.

Mipim, an international real estate show hosted every year in Cannes, France, brings together thousands of developers and architects, as well as city and country officials eager to court potential investors. At this year's event, Michal Kaczmarski asked representatives from Brabant, Eindhoven, Frankfurt, Liverpool, Montenegro and the Chechen Republic what sets their locations apart from other destinations.

The competitive nature of investment promotion means that border cities still view their neighbours as rivals when it comes to investment promotion. But a handful of European border cities are bucking this trend.

Stockholm's relatively small size seems to have worked in its favour when it comes to the city's ambitions to be considered one of Europe's creative hubs. The effect of its creative professionals working in such close proximity has seen the Swedish capital produce an output that is more than the sum of its parts.

While most investment promotion agencies are yet to define a social media strategy, there is almost unanimous agreement that such a strategy can prove key to investment promotion efforts.