S3 Governance

S3 Governance

Governing Smart Specialisation is a complex task, requiring coordination efforts at different levels:

• within the regional administration
• between regional, national and EU institutional actors
• among the regional administration and territorial actors

Innovative activity cuts across policy domains and therefore requires both dialogues and instruments bridging together different policy departments. As an example, to devise policy actions related to innovation in bio-medicine, it is essential that government departments involved in research, health as well as economic development have a governance space to interact and plan jointly. Intra-regional coordination is therefore critical in S3 governance.

At the same time, even through S3 is a place-based approach to innovation, it cannot be framed exclusively within regional boundaries: S3s need to be aligned to broader national and EU priorities, pursuing synergies among policy instruments deployed at different levels. A good S3 governance system, requires also multi-level coordination.

Last but not least, S3, as a place-based approach, requires spaces for sustained interaction with stakeholders across the quadruple helix of research, public sector, private sector and civil society. The bottom-up dimension of S3 governance is critical to an effective and sustained entrepreneurial discovery process.

S3 governance structures, need to respond to these multiple layers of complexity, defining and harmonising objectives at different levels, developing a common vocabulary, and establishing spaces for institutional and stakeholders’ dialogue.

S3 CoP publications

External initiatives and publications