Guide to Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation

Internationalisation
Why should internationalisation be part of smart specialisation?
Internationalisation is a crucial component of a S³ for at least three reasons:
• The world is flat and all elements of an enterprise value chain can be located anywhere
in the world through FDI or outsourcing.
• The eco-system of Member States and Regions can be challenged by the eco-system of
emerging countries. Today, even high added value elements of the enterprise value
chain (i.e. R&D+I, support services, access to finance, design...) can be produced
outside OECD countries. Regions have thus to benchmark themselves with any other
regions to assess where the real or believed competitive advantages are challenged in
order to permanently increase their values.
• Internationalisation is becoming a more and more sophisticated context. It is much more
than export and FDI. It is indeed also strategic alliances, joint research, co-development,
outsourcing, relocation, mergers and acquisitions, licensing IPR, soft landing,
technology showcase.
Barriers and Challenges
Internationalisation is about market and technology intelligence aiming at assessing if the
smart specialisation strategy is able to resist to global competition or to take advantage of
global competition opportunities (often niche markets).
Many reports are showing that lots of SMEs do not use the full potential neither of the internal
nor of the external market. Some of these reports indeed show that while 25% of EU-based
SMEs are involved in export to the Internal Market, in the last three years only 13% of EU
SMEs were internationally active outside the EU through trade or any other forms of
cooperation with foreign partners.
According to a Finnish survey entitled 'International R&D in high growth SMEs –
Implications to innovation policy' 110 , public authorities can help the internationalisation
process of technological companies by supplying them with support services in the six areas
below:
• knowledge of international market and technology demand,
• strategy development for international R&D activities,
• identification and selection of partners,
• identification, selection and acquisition of technology,
• skilled personnel,
• funding for international core, close-to-market and supporting R&D.
In some cases bold regional outsourcing or offshoring support policies should be deployed in
order to help SMEs acquire components – including knowledge – at affordable prices, thereby
enabling them to remain competitive and hence ensure their long term survival. These days,
there are definitely one or more good reasons to compare the expertise available in-house in
110 Gaia Group, http://proact.ktm.fi/index.phtm?menu_id.
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