Guide to Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation

Step 4 - Identification of Priorities
Smart specialisation involves making smart choices. In fact, smart specialisation is all about
facilitating that choice, selecting the right priorities and channelling resources towards those
investments that have the potentially highest impact on the regional economy. The priority
setting for national and/or regional research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation
should consist of the identification of a limited number of innovation and knowledge-based
development priorities in line with existing or potential sectors for smart specialisation, on the
basis of the elements and steps presented in this guide.
Priorities in RIS3 need to:
• Define concrete and achievable objectives. These objectives should be based on present
and future competitive advantage and potential for excellence, as derived from the analysis
of regional potential for innovation-driven differentiation.
• In addition to technological, sectoral or cross-sectoral priority areas, horizontal priorities
need to be defined. These could involve the diffusion and/or application of Key Enabling
Technologies (see Annex II), aspects related to social innovation, or the financing of
growth of newly established companies, which is often a bottleneck in many regions that
have prioritized the creation of new technology-based firms but fail to see these firms grow
and create jobs.
As has been explained in previous sections, the selection process needs to be based on
quantitative as well as qualitative information on the different possible domains for a
national/regional smart specialisation. The key criteria for filtering the range of possible priority
areas down to only a few priorities are:
• the existence of key assets and capabilities (incl. specialized skills and pool of labour) for
each of the areas proposed and, if possible, an original combination of these (cross-sector;
cross-cluster),
• the diversification potential of these sectors, cross-sectors or domains,
• critical mass and/or critical potential within each sector,
• the international position of the region as a local node in global value chains.
All this relevant information is to be examined by decision/policy-makers in order to select a few
priorities focusing on the existing strengths of the economy but also on emerging opportunities.
A good smart specialisation strategy will catalyze structural change and the emergence of critical
clusters so that agglomeration externalities, economies of scale, economies of scope and local
spillovers can be fully realized in the process of knowledge production and distribution.
A regional economy provides clearly the appropriate dimensional framework for such processes
of decision, strategic implementation, agglomeration of resources and materialisation of
spillovers. However, national economies might also be a good framework, particularly in the
case of small countries.
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