Smart specialisation strategies in the EU

Smart specialisation is an EU policy approach, fully implemented from the 2014-2020 programming period onwards, wherein regions identify investment priorities and focus their EU regional innovation spending on them. The goal is to maximise competitive advantage and to build on the regions' own economic strengths. This review aims to inform the reader on what smart specialisation is and how it is implemented in the EU. We observed that while most regions find smart specialisation useful, gaps remain when it comes to ensuring priorities are meaningful for the regions themselves, and for the EU's wider strategic goals. Regions would benefit from more support, there is potential to improve monitoring and evaluation, and more could be done to stimulate the value of interregional co-operation.