Cristina Serbanica (p)

Cristina Lincaru

Conceived with the EU Cohesion framework for 2014-2020, smart specialization (S3) is a place-based innovation policy that prioritizes investments in research, development and innovation based on the countries’/ regions’ strengths and unique comparative advantages. For the 2021-2027 programming period, the ambition is to take smart specialization one step further and to thoroughly integrate the imperatives of sustainable development and of the green and digital transition in the new generation of smart specialization strategies for sustainability (S4). Aligning the smart specialization agendas with the UN 2030 Agenda and with the European Green Deal is now a prerequisite to meet the sustainability transitions.
The last five years have seen a growing trend towards developing and testing guidelines and methodologies to embed science, technology and innovation into sustainable development approaches or vice-versa. The United Nation’s ”Guidebook for the Preparation of Science, Technology and Innovation for SDGs Roadmaps” (2021) or the European Commission/ JRC’s ”Pilot methodology for mapping Sustainable Development Goals in the context of Smart Specialization Strategies” (2021) are some of the most relevant examples in this respect.
Within this frame of reference, the objective of this paper is to map the SDGs in the context of Romania’s national and regional smart specialization strategies. We will use a controlled vocabulary defining semantic area of Sustainable Development Goals to identify the scientific, technological and innovative potential thematically related to the SDGs. Our final aim is to enhance understanding on how to create synergies between different innovation-based policy agendas and better support the sustainability transitions.

Gabriela Tudose (p), Catalin Ghinararu, Ghenadie Ciobanu

Cristina Serbanica

This paper elaborates an empirical analysis of the temporal and geographical distribution of e-skills and the green economy development. The econometric analysis based on Eurostat data base and the results of Eurofound survey on working condition, and on companies, use a panel of data covering European countries and regions ((NUTS-1 and NUTS-2, (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/microdata/european-union-labour-force-survey)) for the period 2010 – 2020. The first result show a positive relationship between skills linked to ICT and green technology argues that e-skills acquisition is a need of regions’ ability to specialise in new technological domains assuring the sustainability of European economy. The results obtained highlight the importance of e-skills development in the context of the transition towards a greener economy and opens up new debates of Smart Specialization Policies.

Cristina Lincaru (p), Speranța Camelia Pîrciog, Adriana Grigorescu, Gabriela Tudoese, Cristina Stroe

Gabriela Tudose

The sustainable competitiveness requests a new VET system tailored to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Green and digital transformation brings social, economic, environmental and governance "transitions to fair and prosperous sustainability. (European Commission. Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. 2020). Prosperous sustainability is on the path to recovery driven by research and innovation. (European Commission. Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. 2021) Following the approach of (Borchard et al. 2020), on the Know SDGs Platform, we use the text mining tool SDG Policy Mapping to search the "competitiveness" keyword across the relevant legal policy documents. We estimate the gaps in implementation by comparing the national SDGs spectrum from the VET system with the normative SDGs spectrum. The VET SDGs gap in the VET system is a useful tool to adjust VET systems' VET strategies to contribute to "transitions to fair and prosperous sustainability fully". On the edge of sustainable recovery for the EU, competitiveness must change the approach to create and deliver new skills. Digital transformation offers unique opportunities to overcome the Covid Crises only if sustainable multilevel governance policies implement the 2030 Agenda coherent with VET policy.