Francesco Cappellano (p), Joanna Kurowska-Pysz

Ramojus Reimeris

Our paper unfolds how different actors interact to mold the Societal Challenge-oriented innovation policy in a cross-border regional context. The presence of the border in its multiplicity of functions allows us to sketch out how the actors framed the problem and select the solution to tackle the Societal Challenge. The quest for policy directionality requires coordinating different government levels and stakeholders negotiating a vision for the development of the policy. To avoid directionality failure, a more thorough understanding of the territorial dimension of the challenge-oriented innovation policy is therefore essential.
While traditionally neglected in the regional innovation policy narratives, the border regions have been shown to act as a source of innovation. The EU border regions offer an ideal testbed for implementing an SC-oriented innovation policy. The analysis will address two EU regions at the following internal international borders: the Polish/Czech border area that engaged with a cross-border strategy to mitigate air pollution and the Swedish/Finnish Kvarken border area where the EGTC has been leveraging projects concerning energy battery and electric mobility in a cross-border perspective. Both areas are famous for their tight cross-border cooperation. We collect primary data through online interviews with representatives of key actors engaged in the two strategies occurring in the selected regions.

In the Polish/Czech border regions, the policymakers pursued a primary environment agenda. In the Swedish/Finnish case, stakeholders promoted a regional development strategy: the main objective was to contribute to decarbonizing the national economy by creating a Nordic battery cluster with clear economic regional spillovers. The results showcase the actors' interaction with different forms of agency within the different strategies. Based on the results, we can frame different forms of “entrepreneurs” working collectively to exchange knowledge substantiating the role of networks in border regions. The strong interplay between stakeholders within the strategy planning flash put a sharp place-based dimension of the Societal Challenge-oriented innovation policy. Although, the actors were not very involved in the solution selection process. The results showcase there are no evident differences across actors from the two sides of the border as both regions experience long-lasting cooperation that increased trust across actors from different backgrounds. The research explored the value-added to hold cross-border strategies. Some interviewees extremely evaluate the benefits to cooperate with peers on the other side of the border to bolster regional R&D capacities.

Alessandro Minello (p), Rita Steffanutto

Francesco Cappellano

In 2022 Veneto Region approved the new version of the Smart specialization strategy (S3), subsequently confirmed by the European commission. The new S3 has radically innovated the rationale of regional intervention by adopting a matrix model and replacing the former one, that was more focused on a traditional and vertical framework. The main innovation lies indeed in its method, by shifting towards a framework able to identify new paths opportunities between continuity and discontinuity and, above all, to address the challenge of the transformational change. The new S3 model presents six priority areas, four horizontal drivers and two strategic missions. Comparing to the former model, it introduces a sharp improvement in the capability to capture the growing connections among all the elements of the S3 and the ongoing economic transformations. The aim of the matrix model is twofold: on the one hand, improving the regional innovation policy in front of the continuous changes in the factors of economic competitiveness, sector specializations, network relationships, on the other hand enabling the twin transition, digital and green, and link the smart specialization strategy to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The overall objective is to go beyond the concept of resilience and strengthen the level of antifragility of the economic, social, and environmental system by place-based innovation policies, with the involvement of various stakeholders of the local communities and by conjugating bottom-up approaches with top-down ones. With the new S3 Veneto Region aims at developing an environment able to react and thrive in the current complexity paradigm as well. The matrix model has been replicated for the design of the monitoring and evaluation pattern to implement a consistent system able to generate punctual feedback on the results of regional public intervention. The innovation introduced was to connect the three levels of evaluation (output, outcome, impact) to a correspondent theme of evaluation (innovative development, potential growth, antifragility), by selecting a consistent set of indicators. To test it, the new monitoring and evaluation model has been partially applied to the system of Regional Innovation Networks (RINs). The test has shown different capabilities of RINs to foster the innovation development and to transform the innovative effort in regional potential growth as well as antifragility conditions. Moreover, it has highlighted several policy suggestions, that will be verified with the first and full evaluation activity to be held later this year.

Manuel Laranja (p), Hugo Pinto

Alessandro Minello

Science and innovation policies have been called to address grand societal challenges through Transformative Innovation Policies – TIP. However, little research exists about the capacities required for innovation policy efforts to become transformative. This is especially pertinent considering the governance limitations identified in the implementation of “Smart Specialisation Strategies” during the Cohesion programming period 2014-2020, especially in less developed regions of Europe. Without capacitation of the policy making community and actors participating in the transformation process, we do not know, whether new policy frames success or failure stems from the quality of the policy model or from the willingness and the policy capacity of the participant actors to actually implementing it.
The question of what policy capacities are need to influence the system level conditions and dynamics, to expediently and purposefully ‘steer’ transformative processes and ultimately produce systemic change, remains open.
Building on recent studies from different areas with different epistemologies such as “systems thinking for social innovation”, “sustainability transitions”, “studies on transformation of urban systems towards sustainability” and existing attempts to define policy capacity associated to governance of transformative and missions oriented innovation policies, we propose a conceptual framework for analysing policy capacities, needed to design and implement Transformative Innovation Policies - TIP.

Manuel Laranja, Inmaculada Perianez Forte, Ramojus Reimeris (p)

Manuel Laranja

Smart Specialisation Strategies - S3, designed and implemented through entrepreneurial discovery processes – EDP during 2014-2020, are likely to continue to play an important role under the policy objective of a Smarter Europe in the next EU funding programming cycle 2021-2027. Innovation policy and S3 now should be aligned with EU Green and Digital transitions with the aim to contribute to systemic transformation. By selectively reviewing conceptual and empirical studies, this paper identifies critical lessons from Smart Specialisation implementation and EDP that may be relevant for Member States and regions adopting a new S3 innovation policy frame. In particular, in the context of the Partnerships for Regional Innovation (PRI), lessons from EDP practices may be useful for conceptualisation and development of the proposed Open Discovery Processes - ODP.