Smart Specialisation Newsletter

The Smart Stories provide an account of the way in which territories across Europe are implementing their Smart Specialisation Strategy to promote economic transformation. The Region Centre-Val de Loire (France) presents the success factors and some of the achievements it has reached thus far, thanks to an ambitious governance system and the involvement of regional stakeholders in the decision-making process.

The five days event was attended by more than 500 participants from more than 70 countries and it gathered academics, practitioners, experts and a diverse group of contributors from different backgrounds. All of the webinar meetings were based on specific publications or train of thoughts presented by the authors and looking to explore the inclusion of sustainability dimensions in the traditional S3 concept. The reports are now available for download.

The second call of the EIT HEI Initiative: Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education is currently open, aiming to increase the innovation and entrepreneurial capacity in higher education by bringing together Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in innovation value chains and ecosystems across Europe. The call is open until 28 February 2022.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a new transformative narrative aligning Smart Specialisation with the UN 2030 Agenda and the European Green Deal by offering directionality towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and combining different levels of policy to achieve the needed sustainability transformations. It is part of a broader effort summarizing different practical and theoretical aspects of this change and contributes to the ongoing debate and methodological underpinning of place-based innovation strategies for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This report provides examples developed at various territorial level to foster environmentally oriented activities in the context of Smart Specialisation Strategy implementation. The report highlights how stakeholders across Europe are using the Smart Specialisation concept to deliver their own innovation-driven green transition agendas, detailing specific policy tools and incentives developed in this context. In particular, the circular economy appears as a recurring transversal driver and a source of economic gains in many territories.

This ongoing work builds on Smart Specialisation concept of place-based research and innovation agenda for regional economic transformation. It takes into account the UN 2030 Agenda objectives (17 SDGs), the European Green Deal and aspects of social and environmental sustainability while reflecting upon the S3 framework within the context of transition studies, notably socio-technical transitions, social-ecological resilience and challenge-driven innovation policy.