Abstract
The dawn of the 2014–2020 programme period of the European Union (EU) coincides with the financial crisis facing the European economy. Funding instruments are expected to generate more results with less money. The EU has introduced “smart specialization” strategy for research and innovation (also referred as RIS3) as a new innovation policy concept designed to promote the efficient and effective use of public investment in research. Its goal is to boost regional innovation in order to achieve economic growth and prosperity, by enabling regions to focus on their strengths. In its emphasis and design, the new smart specialization agenda differs from previous regional innovation policies in the respect that universities have a potentially fundamental role to play in its delivery (Kempton et al., 2014). In Finland, European project funding is one of the most important regional development tools for the higher education institutions and their networks, but the new conditions require a new mindset to answer questions such as: What makes a good public development project? and How can higher education institutions contribute more to society with projects? At the same time, the Finnish regions are at different stages in adopting smart specialization – some are pioneering it with participatory processes while laggards are either treating the subject of smart specialization as business as usual or are confused by uncertain expectations.
Highlights
The dawn of the 2014–2020 programme period of the European Union (EU) coincides with the financial crisis facing the European economy
In Finland, European project funding is one of the most important regional development tools for the higher education institutions and their networks, but the new conditions require a new mindset to answer questions such as: What makes a good public development project? and How can higher education institutions contribute more to society with projects? At the same time, the Finnish regions are at different stages in adopting smart specialization – some are pioneering it with participatory processes while laggards are either treating the subject of smart specialization as business as usual or are confused by uncertain expectations
The Region of Kymenlaakso in Southeastern Finland embarked on a journey to shape their RIS3 strategy through an iterative co-creation process in which the steps themselves, not just the outcome, were perhaps just as important. This is only possible by creating venues – large and small – for interaction. Another good example of practice from Change2020 comes from Finnish Lapland (Box 1), a region where frequent staff exchange between regional project organizations allow their experts to simultaneously work for different organizations and projects
Summary
The dawn of the 2014–2020 programme period of the European Union (EU) coincides with the financial crisis facing the European economy. The EU has introduced “smart specialization” strategy for research and innovation ( referred as RIS3) as a new innovation policy concept designed to promote the efficient and effective use of public investment in research. In its emphasis and design, the new smart specialization agenda differs from previous regional innovation policies in the respect that universities have a potentially fundamental role to play in its delivery (Kempton et al, 2014). In Finland, European project funding is one of the most important regional development tools for the higher education institutions and their networks, but the new conditions require a new mindset to answer questions such as: What makes a good public development project? In Finland, European project funding is one of the most important regional development tools for the higher education institutions and their networks, but the new conditions require a new mindset to answer questions such as: What makes a good public development project? and How can higher education institutions contribute more to society with projects? At the same time, the Finnish regions are at different stages in adopting smart specialization – some are pioneering it with participatory processes while laggards are either treating the subject of smart specialization as business as usual or are confused by uncertain expectations
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