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Smart Specialisation places a strong emphasis on policy results. This result-oriented logic is at the root of the growing importance of monitoring and evaluation in the S3 policy narrative.

Indeed, the third fulfilment criterion of Policy Objective 1 “A smarter Europe by promoting innovative and smart economic transformation” is concerned with these aspects. Regions have been asked to develop “Monitoring and evaluation tools to measure performance towards the objectives of the strategy”.

A good monitoring system provides a clear picture of policy implementation, through indicators that measure inputs, outputs and immediate effects of policy measures. There are some aspects of S3 monitoring that are noteworthy:

• S3 monitoring requires a focus on the evolution of S3 priority-areas, as well as implementing instruments. It is important to understand how the different policy measures are working in the different S3 priority areas, each of which has its own knowledge dynamics (different propensity to patent, different investment times,reliance on different actors of the innovation system, etc.).
• S3 monitoring requires qualitative and quantitative input. On the one hand, we need a clear set of indicators and intervention-logics that clarify and quantify the narrative and expectation behind policy choices. On the other, given the uncertainty surrounding the policy areas addressed by S3, no amounts of indicators can provide a full picture. It is necessary to involve stakeholders in monitoring processes, in order to get their views on the evolution of the priority areas and the implementation of the different instruments.
• The advent of big data, open data platform and text mining techniques has the potential to revolutionise S3 monitoring. Several regions are adopting new visualisation platforms, which exploit open administrative data, to develop policy intelligence and analyse projects and networks related to S3.

S3 CoP publications

External initiatives and publications