There are many moving parts to the Smart Specialisation paradigm. The Committee of the Regions has been a committed driver of the S3 narrative in the past number of years through its opinions and collaborative workshops with the European Commission and the Joint Research Centre. There clearly has been progress and that needs to lauded. But, there is still a catch-up narrative prevalent in many regions. Gaps have hampered progress within governance, the entrepreneurial discovery process, monitoring and evaluation as well as gaps in strategic approaches to clustering, and place-based smart approaches.

In this regard, knowledge sharing and the creation of helpful tools are crucial for local and regional authorities. The Southern Regional Assembly, the Managing Authority of ERDF in the south of Ireland is the Irish partner on COHES3ION, an Interreg project. This comprehensive project has brought 10 European regions together, all aiming at improving the performance and impact of S3 and practically linking findings to ERDF Regional Operational Programmes. The delivery of innovation by research & innovation (R&I) actors can only be brought about by all involved in the process coming together and forging a practical pathway forward.

Log onto interregeurope.eu for more on COHES3ION but certainly the work being pursued is impressive on aspects such macro-analysis and benchmarking, stakeholder consultation, mapping and swot analysis and framework recommendations. Such concrete and practical tools are highly useful as the narrative advances to the next generation of S3.