Smart Specialisation Newsletter

The European Commission and the European Committee of the Regions launch on 28 March the High Level Event on the Partnerships for Regional Innovation (PRI) “From Playbook to Implementation” as a bridge between smart specialisation and other EU policies to promote innovation-driven territorial transformation. The participants will be the Presidents and Regional Ministers of the 74 territories, who will accompany Commissioner Gabriel, Commissioner Ferreira and the President of the European Committee of the Region, Alves Cordeiro. At the scientific level, the event will gather world-leading experts in place-based innovation and territorial development through the PRI Scientific Committee.

This 5th Plenary aims to advance towards the implementation of Interregional Cooperation, agreeing on the steps forward and paving the way for strengthening its political endorsement. This 5th PRI Plenary has been designed as a 3-hour morning session, with 3 main blocks: Insights gathered on Interregional Cooperation and the way ahead for implementation, Stocktaking in the activities of PRI Working Groups and the preparation for the PRI High Level Event, that will take place in Brussels on 28th of March 2023.

The PRI aspiration towards Interregional Cooperation was presented in the 4th PRI Plenary event held. 132 representatives of the 74 PRI territories participated in the event. The European Committee of the Regions and the Joint Research Centre introduced jointly the PRI’s playing field for territories to cooperate on transitions to sustainability pathways. PRI members’ valuable experiences were exposed, and, after intense parallel working sessions, meaningful insights were harvested about the Interregional funding mechanism, Innovations Services and Collaboration in Policies and Tools for accelerating the transitions; the above can prove excellent building blocks for the regions to collaborate and for building up together joint proposals to submit to the European instruments/programs at the disposal of the Interregional Cooperation. Interreg, I3, Euroclusters and Missions and the forthcoming Deep Tech Valley’s Call were presented by DG RDT, DG REGIO, DG GROW and DG CLIMA.

On the 23rd of November, we hosted an Iberian workshop at JRC Seville with cross-border regions from Portugal and Spain. The Portuguese Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Ana Abrunhosa, and the Portuguese Secretary of State for Regional Development, Isabel Ferreira, joined the debate with JRC researchers and representatives from 8 Portuguese and Spanish regional managing authorities. The workshop aimed to foster a collaborative culture, to exchange experience and knowledge about monitoring and evaluation, governance and inter-regional collaboration between Spanish-Portuguese border regions.

This report introduces a tested reflection framework that aims to provide guidance for enhancing the sustainability outcomes of Smart Specialisation strategies. To make the framework accessible and useful for policy makers in all interested regions and countries, the JRC consulted and tested the framework on the ground.

The purpose of this paper is to review available studies on how “Entrepreneurial Discovery Processes” have been implemented and identify which lessons learned are relevant to the new context of transformative innovation policies, where “discovery and experimentation” processes will continue to be a key aspect.