Assessment of smart specialisation as a strategic framework for enhancing research and innovation capacities and for driving innovative and smart economic transformation in EU regions (2024CE16BAT008)

The study aims to assess how effective the smart specialisation concept and its implementation is in targeting ERDF investments for enhancing research and innovation capacities and for driving innovative and smart economic transformation in EU regions. The assessment seeks to answer the following main question: Does smart specialisation fulfil its purpose and provide the adequate strategic framework to channel and facilitate ERDF investments in innovation towards the most important areas for regional economic growth and structural transformation? The assessment will explore the following aspects:

• Effectiveness of the prioritisation approach
• Reinforcing governance and stakeholder management mechanisms
• Connection between smart specialisation strategies, reforms and ERDF investments
• Smart specialisation strengthening industrial transformation
• Embedding interregional cooperation into the S3 policy design
• Setting performance-based monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. The geographical scope of the study covers the 27 Member States of the Union.