Abstract
ABSTRACTThe concept of smart specialization has rapidly acquired a central position in European policy and academic circles. It raises interesting challenges for the regional studies agenda. First, smart specialization is about not only policy formulation, implementation and evaluation but also pooling scattered resources, competencies and powers to serve both shared and individual ambitions. Thus, policy formulation and implementation need to be seen in a new light. Second, when smart specialization is seen as one of the platforms for aligning several actors to boost regional economic development, the need to understand agency in its multiplicity emerges as central. This paper argues that to achieve truly transformative smart specialization strategies, there is a need to investigate in more depth the multi-actor strategy processes and new forms of leadership, as well as to invest time and money in advancing related capabilities across European regions.
Highlights
The concept of smart specialization has rapidly acquired a central position in European policy and academic circles
According to Allen and Cochrane (2007), the politics and agency revolving around regional development are attempting to construct wider visions of change, and as discussed above, smart specialization approaches stress the importance of shared visions
This paper argues that smart specialization necessitates finding new developmental strategies and understanding the importance of place leadership; the ways actors navigate and/or remove the policy traps towards collective action
Summary
Urban and Regional Studies Group (SENTE), Faculty of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. Healey (1997) points out that the process should focus on specific actions being invented through the inclusive and interactive process by (1) drawing, shaping and organizing attention, and deflecting it to the questions and issues that need to be faced (Heifetz, 1994); and (2) formulating and reformulating problems and opportunities, which is central to addressing significance and leading belief systems (Sotarauta, 2016) In this thinking, smart specialization strategy is to be seen as an arena for discussions, battles and quarrels, and one day a region might be mature enough to construct genuinely collective strategies and shared visions. The concept of place leadership might add analytical leverage in the efforts to understand how policy traps affect smart specialization practices and what kinds of capabilities need to be learned for removing the traps or navigating across them
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