How ‘smart’ are Smart Specialisation strategies?

Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, Marco Di Cataldo and Vassilis Monastiriotis ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

No 15442, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The introduction of Smart Specialisation (S3) as a fundamental pillar of the 2014 reform of the European Union (EU) Cohesion Policy has represented a significant strategic shift in European development intervention. S3 strategies are aimed at mobilising the economic potential of each country and region of the EU, by allowing a more place-based and bottom-up approach to development. However, despite the salience that S3 has acquired in a short period of time, there has been no European-wide evaluation of the extent to which S3 strategies truly reflect the economic characteristics and potential of the territories where they are being implemented. This paper examines the characteristics of S3 strategies across Europe – by focusing on their development axes, economic/scientific domains, and policy priorities – to assess whether this is the case. The results show that S3 strategies display a proliferation of objectives, a problem which particularly affects those areas with weaker government quality. Moreover, strategies are generally loosely connected with the intrinsic conditions of each region and mostly mimic what neighbouring areas are doing. The lack of more concise and focused S3 strategies is likely to undermine the effectiveness of what is, otherwise, a very interesting and worthwhile policy experiment.

Keywords: Smart specialisation; Eu policy; Regions; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O52 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15442 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: How ‘smart’ are Smart Specialisation strategies? (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15442

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15442

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().