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There is no one-size-fits-all governance model for regional innovation policies. Policy instruments and organizations that support policy implementation can help address socio-economic and environmental objectives, bridging the divide between the generic concept of place-based innovation policy and its implementation in different territorial contexts. This thesis investigates the way a place-based innovation policy concept such as smart specialisation can better fit the reality of the diversity of governance capacities of EU regions. The research question is addressed from two distinct perspectives: on the one hand, the thesis explores the institutional arrangements underpinning place-based policies and smart specialisation design and implementation with the creation of regional innovation agencies. On the other hand, the thesis explores the monitoring activities from the perception of policymakers in charge of the design and the implementation of the innovation strategies. One way to address a regional institutional weakness is through the creation of Regional Innovation Agencies (RIAs). RIAs can be thought of as "one-size-fits-all" institutional arrangements that let organizations enhance their Regional innovation system in a systematic way by designing and implementing a place-based policy. In other words, RIAs can be seen as “adjustment variables”, allowing a generic place-based policy to fit unique territorial contexts. The analysis shows policy implications relevant for any regional innovation system and inextricably linked to the good governance of innovation policies such as smart specialisation. The agency should reflect a shared vision between the public and private sectors. It appears that the most appropriate and effective level of governance for the agency is the metropolitan level, as one single agency in a region would lead to institutional complexity and coordination failures. However, as the agencies studied are very specific to the places in which they are established, the impact on their respective territories should be thoroughly evaluated before deciding if the policy should be replicated in other peripheral regions of the EU. In any case, regional governance with appropriate institutional arrangements equipped with an efficient monitoring system that can collect the needs of stakeholders and capture weak signals coming from outside makes the region more resilient to external shocks. Monitoring is an important component of a strategy for innovation and territorial development. The challenge raised by monitoring activities goes hand in hand with the complexity of the S3 concept itself. Analysis shows policymakers view monitoring as a management tool and a means of communicating with stakeholders. However, this perception may have some limitations when implementing the strategy. So far, the analysis indicates that, while the theory of smart specialisation is well known, converting what should be done in theory into practice constitutes a significant challenge in terms of stakeholder engagement in all phases of strategic management.

Smart specialisation is conceptualised as research and innovation policymaking encompassed in a holistic place-based view of development. It combines an organisational bottom-up approach with a structural approach, stressing interactions among local and international actors that participate and facilitate reflexive learning processes. The issue of governance is key and multi-level governance is instrumental for advancing with the goal of the strategy on the ground. The need to connect top-down EU policies with place-based facts and ambitions that translate into competitive advantage, generating growth and jobs, makes governance the cornerstone of the smart specialisation process. In the context of the revision of the existing strategies the need to reassess the coherence of policy intervention is of crucial importance to address the local but also the global challenges faced by EU territories., JRC.B.3-Territorial Development

Over the 2014-2020 financial period, 451 €bn of ESIF are invested in Cohesion policies, of which more than 40 €bn are dedicated directly to the thematic objective related to research and innovation. Among ESIF funds, ERDF is the main source of funding of Innovation through the implementation of Smart specialisation strategies with a management shared between the Commission and the Regional or national authorities. In this respect the monitoring and the evaluation of ESIF are implemented at regional or national level. At European Commission level, monitoring of Cohesion policy is carried out mainly at operational programme (OP) level, meaning only very limited information is available at project and beneficiaries' level, also with partly low accuracy in terms of geographical information (OP can be national or in some cases multiregional). Reporting at project and beneficiary level is carried out through national or regional databases gathering information on beneficiaries (type of organisation, localisation etc.) and details on funded projects (e.g. titles and abstracts and possibly other additional info depending the territory). Conversely to Horizon 2020 and due to the shared management, a complete structured database of ESIF projects does not exist. While information on ESIF beneficiaries and projects is recorded, this is held by individual regional or national managing authorities. Gathering this information on projects and beneficiaries in a single structured database would greatly benefit policy monitoring and evaluation, and the identification and creation of synergies with Horizon 2020 funding. This database would also feed ex-ante impact assessment analysis for the future multi-annual financial period (2021-2027), for the future cohesion policies and Horizon-Europe programme. The design of a structured and comprehensive database of projects funded by ERDF for the period 2014-2018 is based on the systematic collection of all information available at national and regional levels. The whole content of the database is translated to English (including project titles and abstracts) using European Commission Machine translation tool. The database offers also additional information such as keywords associated to each project in order to be able to bridge easily information contained in the ERDF projects database with, among others, Eye@RIS3 and the Horizon 2020 database. This report explains the origins of the information, the processing of collected information and the proxies used to obtain the most complete and comprehensive picture as possible of what has been supported through ERDF funding since 2014., JRC.B.3-Territorial Development

In May 2019, DG MARE and the JRC published its Blue economy Report. The main focus was on boosting a “blue” economy, the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, through entrepreneurship, investment, and research and innovation. In order to better understand and illustrate the new opportunities coming from the Blue economy, this report introduces the emergent sector of Blue biotechnology. As one part of the larger Biotechnology sector, dedicated to marine bioresources, it is difficult to clearly define the sector. However, experts agree on the important value of the Blue biotechnology a) to make the existing sector of aquaculture and macroalgae harvesting more efficient and sustainable, and b) to develop new biological products and applications from marine bioresources with uses in energy, cosmetics, nutrition, health or manufacturing. 12 countries and 53 regions in the EU present linkages to the Blue biotechnology in their Smart Specialisation Strategies. A comprehensive screening of EU supported interventions in the current 2014-2020 funding period showed that € 238.6 million of EU funds have been invested in 182 projects and initiatives related to Blue biotechnology with a total budget of EUR 336 million. Smart Specialisation Strategies are a policy instrument which favour the discovery of innovation potential, also in the Blue biotechnology., JRC.B.3-Territorial Development

The renewed EU agenda for higher education (European Commission, 2017) has emphasized that higher education institutions are not contributing as much as they should to innovation in their regions and countries. The engagement of universities in S3 has shown to be particularly important in countries and regions with weaker regional innovation systems and sub-critical public institutional capacity. The ability of universities to bring together education, research and innovation, places them as particularly important stakeholders to contribute to the research and innovation system. Nevertheless, becoming more engaged in regional innovation policies and S3 requires an important strategic vision and institutional change by HEIs to be able to engage in co-creation dynamics with quadruple helix actors. Moreover, the ability of universities to adjust their working agenda could require some change in their common practices. How they can manage this, mandates a governance framework which can allow for agility from institutes steeped in tradition. The issue of governance is complex, multi-dimensional, and often involves changes in policy, behaviour and outreach for a successful implementation of set objectives. Institutional governance in general and for universities in particular, implies setting in motion or overseeing various institutional processes and regulatory provisions to allow for the planned targets and outcomes to be achieved. The current report proposes an analytical framework for university governance allowing the comparison and benchmarking of governance systems across EU member states, which could serve as guidance for university managers and policy makers to design the institutional incentives and funding programmes for increased engagement in S3. This analytical framework is experimented through a survey involving 74 European universities, the analysis of country annual reports of the Research and innovation observatory (RIO) and the knowledge generated in S2E project covering particularly EU13 countries and the higher education for Smart specialisation initiative (HESS). The main results and limits are commented and discussed with some recommendations., JRC.B.3-Territorial Development

Leveraging greater impact from the array of research and innovation funds in the EU is driving efforts to combine such funds and develop synergies at the policy and strategy levels. However, one of the first challenges for policy makers and stakeholders intervening in the support to R&I is to obtain a full picture of all current and planned funding and financing instruments. This report uses the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) framework to characterise the different funding that is available. The major bottlenecks in the innovation process that can arise through the lack of appropriate funding are discussed along with the background and the utility and criticisms of the TRL. The use of TRL to characterise and map research and innovation in the EU provides a useful framework. However, there is a need to broaden the scope of TRL to include commercialisation of new products and services and scale-up business capacities. Furthermore, it is limited by its technology focus, while innovation can embrace many aspects beyond the purely technological. This work has also highlighted many issues that can affect the optimal combination of funds. There is a need for cross-cutting knowledge of the different funds rather than there being ''silo-thinking'' where a person only considers the area in which they directly work and not interrelated areas in other domains. Hand in hand with this is a better understanding of how beneficiaries decided between funding options and the support they may require. This support can include clearer information communicated with regards to the funds and also the financial instruments that are available, such as those implemented by the European Investment bank. Finally, an improved alignment of the rules of participation of the various funds is needed, both between the different funds at the EU level but also with national funding., JRC.B.3-Territorial Development

How can EU policies support the development of innovation capabilities in less developed regions? This note examines the mobilisation of the EU’s two major innovation support instruments: the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) and Horizon 2020 (H2020). Using data from Eurostat and European Commission administrative data on ESIF and H2020 funding, we observe a number of salient patterns: While newer member states benefit from higher research and innovation allocations from ESIF, participation in H2020 remains a formidable challenge. Across Europe we find that H2020 participation is closely associated with a number of proxies of the development of national and regional innovation systems. With few exceptions (most notably Slovenia and the Czech Republic) newer member states are characterised by lower overall R&D intensity, their research and innovation systems are less internationalised and most R&D is performed by public research institutions rather than businesses. Based on a review of literature on the determinants of participation in the H2020 (and its predecessor Framework Programmes), the history of today's advanced innovation systems and a consideration of the objectives of, modes of intervention of and possible complementarities between ESIF and H2020 we single out international collaboration and business innovation capabilities as important instrumental objectives for development-minded policy., JRC.B.3-Territorial Development

Smart Specialisation represents the most comprehensive industrial policy experiment being implemented in Europe. Conceived within the reformed Cohesion policy of the European Commission, Smart Specialisation is a place-based policy promoting economic transformation and investment in innovative activities in selected areas of the socio-economic system in order to achieve a smart, inclusive and sustainable growth. Drawing on empirical evidence, the Smart Specialisation Implementation Handbook is targeted at policy-makers and regional development professionals who are crafting their innovation policy according to a common set of principles and methodologies. The handbook aims at taking stock of the Smart Specialisation experience and presenting its current state of the art, both in terms of conceptual developments and practical implementation. It addresses five key milestones of the implementation process: 1) The Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) cycle: from priority selection to strategy implementation 2) Good governance: principles and challenges 3) From priorities to projects: selection criteria and selection process 4) Transnational cooperation and value chains 5) Monitoring, JRC.B.3-Territorial Development

The concept of the European Research Area, as originally defined, promoted increased co-ordination and cooperation among national research policies and programmes. Later on it was complemented by another ambitious objective, that of realising the fifth "freedom of movement" within Europe. Both objectives require the construction and implementation of effective instruments. This third edition of the ERA Fabric Map reflects on instruments in two steps. It first analyses the current main policy programmes and instruments and their historical development thus delving into the mechanisms that actually shape the research and innovation scene in Europe. It then adopts a prospective point of view and analyses the four scenarios developed by the VERA consortium from an instrument perspective. It highlights the policy programmes and instruments that need to be in place to sustain them, and compares them to those currently in place in Europe and the rest of the world. This third version of the ERA Fabric Map complements the first two editions by adding an instrument perspective and a forward-looking dimension., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

The NETWATCH online platform collects and presents information to support the analysis of transnational research programme cooperation. Its content centres on the participants and activities of ERA-NETs and ERA-NET Plus. Building on these data, this report sets out an assessment of the impact of the FP7 ERA-NET scheme on stakeholder organisations and on the research systems in which they operate. In July 2012, the European Commission's ERA Communication gave renewed impetus to the realisation of ERA, targeting its completion in 2014. Transnational coordination of research at the programming level was identified as playing a prominent role in this, with ERA-NETs being a key instrument. These developments highlight the need to understand better the impact of the ERA-NET scheme. NETWATCH has accumulated substantial information on transnational research programme collaboration, which provides a solid basis for this impact assessment, together with complementary data from various secondary sources and additional data collection by JRC-IPTS. The issues addressed by the current report are threefold: -The direct impact of the ERA-NET scheme on the collaborative dimensions of national research programming practices, reflecting the extent to which the scheme is meeting its core objectives ; -The impact of the scheme on the behaviour of participating organisations and; -The overall impact on the national and European research landscape, particularly the nature and level of transnational collaborative behaviour., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

Cooperation in the EU between Member States and with Associated Countries on national public research programming has received a lot of attention in recent years, and will continue to do so under Europe 2020. This NETWATCH Policy Brief looks at the current policy context and rationales for transnational coordination of research programming, and aims to measure progress made so far in doing so. It looks both at coordination of public national research budgets and at cooperation between nations under the framework programmes, Horizon 2020 and Cohesion policy., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

This analytical country report is one of a series of annual ERAWATCH reports produced for EU Member States and Countries Associated to the Seventh Framework Programme for Research of the European Union (FP7). The main objective of the ERAWATCH Annual Country Reports is to characterise and assess the performance of national research systems and related policies in a structured manner that is comparable across countries. The Country Report 2012 builds on and updates the 2011 edition. The report identifies the structural challenges of the national research and innovation system and assesses the match between the national priorities and the structural challenges, highlighting the latest developments, their dynamics and impact in the overall national context. They further analyse and assess the ability of the policy mix in place to consistently and efficiently tackle these challenges. These reports were originally produced in December 2012, focusing on policy developments over the previous twelve months. The reports were produced by independent experts under direct contract with IPTS. The analytical framework and the structure of the reports have been developed by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the Joint Research Centre (JRC-IPTS) and Directorate General for Research and Innovation with contributions from external experts., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

The NETWATCH on-line platform collects information in support of analysis of transnational research programme cooperation. Its content centres on ERA-NETs and ERA-NET Plus, however, information is also collected on Article 185s and networks that continue but no longer receive EU support (known as self-sustaining networks). The information collected is used to map and monitor the transnational research programme landscape and to produce policy briefs on issues pertinent to the policy debate, which are also published on the platform. This report constitutes the first NETWATCH impact assessment and focuses on ERA-NETs and the development of an approach to assess their impact against the policy goals, including wider European Research Area (ERA) objectives., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

This report is a synthesis of progress towards achievement of the ERA, based on an analysis of country data on the five ERA priorities (as defined in the 2012 EC Communication) collected with the support of independent country experts in the first semester 2013, complemented by other relevant indicators and study results (taking into account in some cases limitations regarding data availability and quality). It offers a synthetic and cross-country analytical overview by ERA priority of relevant policies and related policy support measures adopted and implemented (including necessary legal changes enacted) in EU Member States. It covers the 28 EU Member States and 13 Associated Countries. This report aims to identify behavioural patterns across countries, take into account progress in relation to the ERA baseline indicators, and contribute to the ERA Monitoring Mechanism., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

This ERA fabric map gives a snapshot of the ERA today. It looks at the division of responsibilities between EU and Member States, and at institutions and bodies involved in the European research system. Starting from the six ERA dimensions described in the ERA Green Paper, the report then looks where we are today, and which direction the future is taking, given the policy context of Europe 2020. Involvement of stakeholders in further building the ERA is looked at by analysing their involvement in a number of existing ERA instruments, using a taxonomy of stakeholder roles and functions. The report has been written as part of the FP7 project Forward Visions on the European Research Area (VERA). This first edition will be updated twice as part of the VERA project., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

Smart Specialisation represents the most comprehensive industrial policy experiment being implemented in Europe. Conceived within the reformed Cohesion policy of the European Commission, Smart Specialisation is a place-based policy promoting economic transformation and investment in innovative activities in selected areas of the socio-economic system in order to achieve a smart, inclusive and sustainable growth. Drawing on empirical evidence, the Smart Specialisation Implementation Handbook is targeted at policy-makers and regional development professionals who are crafting their innovation policy according to a common set of principles and methodologies. The handbook aims at taking stock of the Smart Specialisation experience and presenting its current state of the art, both in terms of conceptual developments and practical implementation. It addresses five key milestones of the implementation process: 1) The Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) cycle: from priority selection to strategy implementation 2) Good governance: principles and challenges 3) From priorities to projects: selection criteria and selection process 4) Transnational cooperation and value chains 5) Monitoring, JRC.B.3-Territorial Development

In the frame of the Stairway to Excellence project, complex country analysis was performed for the EU MS that joined the EU since 2004, with the objective to assess and corroborate all the qualitative and quantitative data in drawing national/regional FP7 participation patterns, understand the push–pull factors for FP7/H2020 participation and the factors affecting the capacity to absorb cohesion policy funds. This report articulates analysis on selected aspects and country-tailored policy suggestions aiming to tackle the weaknesses identified in the analysis. The report complements the complex qualitative/ quantitative analysis performed by the IPTS/KfG/S2E team. In order to avoid duplication and cover all the elements required for a sound analysis, the report builds on analytical framework developed by IPTS., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

In the frame of the Stairway to Excellence project, complex country analysis was performed for the EU MS that joined the EU since 2004, with the objective to assess and corroborate all the qualitative and quantitative data in drawing national/regional FP7 participation patterns, understand the push–pull factors for FP7/H2020 participation and the factors affecting the capacity to absorb cohesion policy funds. This report articulates analysis on selected aspects and country-tailored policy suggestions aiming to tackle the weaknesses identified in the analysis. The report complements the complex qualitative/ quantitative analysis performed by the IPTS/KfG/S2E team. In order to avoid duplication and cover all the elements required for a sound analysis, the report builds on analytical framework developed by IPTS., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth