Abstract
Smart Specialisation is dedicated to be a key driving force for entrepreneurial discovery and innovation in the European innovation policy paradigm in line with the European Strategy 2020 and the funding period 2014-2020. At the current stage, all EU NUTS-2 regions are monitoring their individually developed Regional Innovation Strategies on Smart Specialisation (RIS3) including monitoring systems that are needed to adjust upcoming future RIS3 strategies in the new funding periods. Despite the thematic topicality, the procedure of RIS3 evaluation and monitoring lacks a sound supra-regional approach when it comes to RIS3 implementation performance governance and institutional arrangements across all European regions. In fact, the blurring of RIS3 monitoring can be traced back to the policy nature that monitoring systems are set up, implemented and evaluated on individual regional and or national basis including a set of regionally tailored regional and national indicators. With regard to the policy challenges and research gaps of developing, and, later, using a joint macro-regional systemic institutional approach towards RIS3 implementation and monitoring, this paper provides a conceptual model for RIS3 performance, evaluation and monitoring governance based on case study analysis, best practices from RIS3 research and policy stakeholders’ interviews. It is intended to serve as a comprehensive and comparative governance model on regional, national and European level, which fosters the institutional thickness and institutional multi-level horizontal cooperation among institutions involved in RIS3 performance and monitoring implementation. Within the empirical narrative, 10 NUTS-2 regions within the INTERREG Central Europe Programme area and in the frame of the “SMART_watch” project were subject to the analysis pertaining to their strategy design, priority axes and monitoring indicators. As a result, the so-called Transnational RIS3 Observatory Model was designed, which yields conceptual linkages to theoretical concepts using cluster theories as well as builds upon practical policy-driven approaches mushrooming in the innovation policy paradigm of the European Union. Furthermore, recommendations to foster the RIS3 policy implementation in the upcoming funding period are introduced in line with the setup of the observatory structure and its institutional embeddedness.
Highlights
The Smart Specialisation approach is one of the key pillars of the Europe 2020 Strategy in terms of economic development and growth policy thinking (McCann & Ortega-Argilés, 2011) as well as an approach to avoid dissipation of European Union (EU) funds among regions (Rusu, 2013)
After announcing the Regional Innovation on Smart Specialisation (RIS3) initiative as a new novel policy on European level, all NUTS-2 regions were given an opportunity to develop individual strategies according to the available top-down policy agenda as well as design sufficient monitoring systems
The objective of this research paper was to examine, how a functional model can be implemented across the EU on all necessary levels to enable Smart Specialisation monitoring for RIS3 implementation
Summary
The Smart Specialisation approach is one of the key pillars of the Europe 2020 Strategy in terms of economic development and growth policy thinking (McCann & Ortega-Argilés, 2011) as well as an approach to avoid dissipation of European Union (EU) funds among regions (Rusu, 2013). All European regions are revising their strategies for the funding period starting in 2021 and pertaining to future regional innovative growth, including the elaboration to improve the RIS3 policy implementation (Gianelle et al, 2020) Within this discourse, monitoring experiences frame a key focus and serve as an information pool for any potential future changes needed to be introduced by policy makers. The need for an acceptance of the mutual action and reaction roadmap among institutions forging regional development and innovation is growing, including actual positioning, responsibilities’ sharing as well as pinpointing cause and consequence relations, which at the current stage are unknown (Morgan, 2016) In this light, the practice-based model that is acknowledged among 10 NUTS-2 regions and is proposed by this research is seen as referred to as a contribution surpassing a simple necessity to meet this particular challenge. The fourth chapter includes the research results and the actual development of the Transnational RIS3 Observatory Model as tool of Smart Specialisation governance, ending with a concluding section summing up main insights and further research proposal
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