Post-Covid-19 Recovery Policies: Place-based and Sustainable Strategies

The Corona-crisis is a wake-up call to make our way of life and our economy more resilient. While still struggling with the immediate impact of the crisis, policy makers are preparing an unprecedented investment effort to direct our economy to a new, sustainable future. The EU must develop leadership at all policy levels for the green, digital and white transitions. But rebooting the economy not only requires huge investment efforts, the ‘what’. Equally important is the ‘how’, the way that the recovery strategy is designed, governed and implemented. Therefore, the Green Deal and industrial strategy must develop a multi-level governance model that engages cities and regions across Europe – the policy levels closest to both citizens and innovation ecosystems that deliver solutions for citizens’ needs. Drawing lessons from the Lisbon Strategy, the smart specialisation approach has been developed to prevent the fragmentation of investment efforts in the EU by prioritising innovation and transformation investment in Member States and regions in their competitive strengths. It is now a core component of EU Cohesion policy and is increasingly aligning specialisations in partnerships across borders. A new ‘Marshall Plan’ for EU recovery should take on board the role of place-based innovation and smart specialisation in regions and cities, to co-invest effectively in new EU value chains.