European Commission initiated the “Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation” (RIS3). Details are on this link. Smart specialisation is about that European regions are encouraged by European Commission to develop research and innovation strategies for smart specialization. The strategies act to identify as well as exploit markets and resources for regional development and growth based on their socio-economic conditions and challenges. In more simple text, in smart specialisation regions should focus more efforts in areas where they are strong, and thereby facilitate economic growth.
The smart specialisation in a region is basically about finding topical areas where there are a large number of stakeholders which have interest or is already active in the area of strength. These will in a natural way form value chains, for example from materials fabrication to system use. These value chains can be either full, or cover large part of value chain, and motivated from regional economic growth point of view.
A research project often aims to cover the full range from materials fabrication to system. This is a value chain motivated from technology point of view. Thus both the smart specialisation for regional development and the technology project address the value chain. However, the technology and regional actors have still to come together to understand each other. There is not sufficiently mature understanding that there is a technology which fit in a regional context (smart specialisation area), or the other way around, that there is a regional strategy in which the technology value chain fit.
Still, after its initiation 2012-2013, many local actors (research, SMEs, industry) are not aware of smart specialisation. At the same time, the regional players do not understand the technology sufficiently to propose actions for using these implementations related to smart specialisation. There is a gap.
This shows which profound challenge the alignment of technology and regional focus is. To face this challenge, we actively work with the concept in transfer of knowledge in relation to smart specialisation, and apply that in this project by the SiComb partner ALM which has experience in creating utilisation from advanced materials research and innovation since 2010 as well as experience in smart specialisation since 2013. Next there is Sustainable Smart Specialisation Strategy (S4). This shows that there is a natural link from technology to S3 to S4. The S4 has changed to Partnerships for Regional Innovation (PRI). The Partnership for Regional Innovation is an initiative by the European Commission to promote and support innovation in Europe’s regions. It is part of the European Union’s Cohesion Policy and aims to strengthen regional innovation ecosystems by bringing together various stakeholders, such as businesses, universities, and public authorities. Through the partnership, the European Commission provides financial support and expertise to help regions develop their innovation strategies and implement them. The partnership also facilitates the exchange of best practices and knowledge sharing among regions, as well as collaboration on joint innovation projects. The main reference document underpinning the Partnerships for Regional Innovation – PRI Pilot Action is the “PRI Playbook”, developed by the JRC-European Commission with the support of a Scientific Committee of recognised experts. Overall, the Partnership for Regional Innovation seeks to foster sustainable economic growth and job creation by leveraging the innovation potential of Europe’s regions.
There are synergies between advanced materials technologies and smart specialisation. Alminica AB is partner in projects with contribution in impact creation, or can have workshops for training.
Some learnings about implementing RIS3 are in the Empinno report: