Smart specialisation is an innovative policy concept which emphasizes the principle of prioritisation in a vertical logic (to favour some technologies, fields, population of firms) and defines a method to identify such desirable areas for innovation policy intervention. Its rationale involves...

In the design and implementation of policy, Paul Romer (2000) proposed a useful distinction between goals and programmes. Goals should be rather conservative (i.e. easy to accept). They should be objectives that are neither risky nor radical and for which there is a broad base of intellectual...