IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ipt/iptwpa/jrc98691.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Implementing Smart Specialisation in Sparsely Populated Areas

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This Working Paper explores Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) in Sparsely Populated Areas (SPA). The paper discusses the most significant elements of Smart Specialisation (S3) in SPA focusing on its theoretical background as well as on the empirical processes related to the introduction and implementation of the S3 concept in selected European regions. Presenting both issues emerging from theoretical debates and practice-based examples, this paper provides a critical discussion on the operationalisation of S3 in the specific context of European Sparsely Populated Areas. SPA should not be seen as regions lagging behind by definition but as regions with specific characteristics including challenges and opportunities. The analysis of the case-study regions demonstrates that SPA have been able to create innovative environments in sparsely populated and remote areas and that there is a mind-set and willingness to utilise the possibilities provided by S3 processes. However, in doing so SPA need to strengthen their competitiveness with extra-regional knowledge and networking pipelines and even more so than other types of regions in consideration of the lack of critical mass. The specific characteristics and features of SPA often with abundant natural resources, but with limited human capital and lack of agglomeration economies need to be carefully studied and the regional actors need not only to be heard but also to be invited to an inclusive S3 process. The cases discussed enlighten the need to address S3 as an overarching framework for territorial development based on the integration of complementary policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Jukka TERÄS & Alexandre DUBOIS & JENS SÖRVIK & MARTINA PERTOLDI, 2015. "Implementing Smart Specialisation in Sparsely Populated Areas," JRC Research Reports JRC98691, Joint Research Centre.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc98691
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/reports-and-technical-documentation/implementing-smart-specialisation-sparsely-populated-areas_en
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mikel Landabaso, 2012. "What Public Policies Can and Cannot do for Regional Development," Chapters, in: Philip Cooke & Mario Davide Parrilli & José Luis Curbelo (ed.), Innovation, Global Change and Territorial Resilience, chapter 16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Martin Jänicke & Klaus Jacob, 2004. "Lead Markets for Environmental Innovations: A New Role for the Nation State," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 29-46, February.
    3. Ron Boschma, 2014. "Constructing Regional Advantage and Smart Specialisation: Comparison of Two European Policy Concepts," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(1), pages 51-68.
    4. Philip McCann & Raquel Ortega-Argilés, 2013. "Modern regional innovation policy," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 6(2), pages 187-216.
    5. Nooteboom, B., 2004. "Innovation, learning and cluster dynamics," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2004-006-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    6. Dominique Foray & Xabier Goenaga, 2013. "The goals of Smart Specialisation," JRC Research Reports JRC82213, Joint Research Centre.
    7. Marie Denise Filippi & Olivier Frey & André Torre, 2011. "The modalities of territorial embeddedness of french cooperative groups," Post-Print hal-01198088, HAL.
    8. Henning Kroll, 2015. "Efforts to Implement Smart Specialization in Practice--Leading Unlike Horses to the Water," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(10), pages 2079-2098, October.
    9. Philip McCann & Raquel Ortega-Argil�s, 2015. "Smart Specialization, Regional Growth and Applications to European Union Cohesion Policy," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 1291-1302, August.
    10. Andre Torre & Alain Rallet, 2005. "Proximity and Localization," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 47-59.
    11. Kevin Morgan, 2013. "The regional state in the era of Smart Specialisation," EKONOMIAZ. Revista vasca de Economía, Gobierno Vasco / Eusko Jaurlaritza / Basque Government, vol. 83(02), pages 103-126.
    12. Dominique Foray & Alessandro Rainoldi, 2013. "Smart specialisation programmes and implementation," JRC Research Reports JRC82224, Joint Research Centre.
    13. Ron Boschma, 2005. "Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 61-74.
    14. Andy Pike & Andrés Rodriguez-Pose & John Tomaney, 2008. "Local and Regional Development," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 84(2), pages 241-242, April.
    15. Andrew K. Copus, 2001. "From Core-periphery to Polycentric Development: Concepts of Spatial and Aspatial Peripherality," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 539-552, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jukka Teras & Viktor Salenius & Laura Fagerlund & Lina Stanionyte, 2018. "Smart Specialisation in Sparsely Populated European Arctic Regions," JRC Research Reports JRC114273, Joint Research Centre.
    2. Duarte, Rosa & García-Riazuelo, Álvaro & Sáez, Luis Antonio & Sarasa, Cristina, 2022. "Economic and territorial integration of renewables in rural areas: Lessons from a long-term perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moodysson , Jerker & Trippl, Michaela & Zukauskaite, Elena, 2015. "Policy Learning and Smart Specialization Balancing Policy Change and Policy Stability for New Regional Industrial Path Development," Papers in Innovation Studies 2015/39, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    2. Trippl, Michaela & Asheim, Björn & Miorner, Johan, 2015. "Identification of regions with less developed research and innovation systems," Papers in Innovation Studies 2015/1, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    3. David L. Rigby & Christoph Roesler & Dieter Kogler & Ron Boschma & Pierre-Alexandre Balland, 2019. "Do EU regions benefit from smart specialization?," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1931, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Nov 2019.
    4. E. Marrocu & R. Paci & D. Rigby & S. Usai, 2020. "Smart Specialization Strategy: any relatedness between theory and practice?," Working Paper CRENoS 202004, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    5. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Ron Boschma & Joan Crespo & David L. Rigby, 2017. "Smart Specialization policy in the EU: Relatedness, Knowledge Complexity and Regional Diversification," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1717, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jul 2017.
    6. Laima Gerlitz & Christopher Meyer & Christopher Meyer & Gunnar Prause & Gunnar Prause, 2020. "Methodology approach on benchmarking Regional Innovation on Smart Specialisation (RIS3): a joint macro-regional tool to regional performance evaluation and monitoring in Central Europe," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 8(2), pages 1359-1385, December.
    7. Adi Weidenfeld, 2018. "Tourism Diversification and Its Implications for Smart Specialisation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-24, January.
    8. Diego D'Adda & Donato Iacobucci & Roberto Palloni, 2020. "Relatedness in the implementation of Smart Specialisation Strategy: a first empirical assessment," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(3), pages 405-425, June.
    9. Ron Boschma, 2021. "Designing Smart Specialization Policy: relatedness, unrelatedness, or what?," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2128, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Sep 2021.
    10. Kroll, Henning, 2016. "Understanding the "regional policy mix": A classification and analysis of European regions' support policies," Working Papers "Firms and Region" R1/2016, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    11. Caviggioli, F. & Colombelli, A. & De Marco, A. & Scellato, G. & Ughetto, E., 2023. "The impact of university patenting on the technological specialization of European regions: a technology-level analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    12. László Szerb & Raquel Ortega‐Argilés & Zoltan J. Acs & Éva Komlósi, 2020. "Optimizing entrepreneurial development processes for smart specialization in the European Union," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(5), pages 1413-1457, October.
    13. Ron Boschma & Carlo Gianelle, 2014. "Regional Branching and Smart Specialisation Policy," JRC Research Reports JRC88242, Joint Research Centre.
    14. Moritz Breul, 2023. "Unpacking smart specialization strategies: how collective policy-making processes shape the direction of regional strategies," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2320, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Sep 2023.
    15. Philippe Lefebvre, 2017. "Les Stratégies Régionales d’Innovation de « spécialisation intelligente » en Europe (Smart Specialization Strategies) : Dynamiques territoriales endogènes et institutions exogènes," Working Papers hal-01494814, HAL.
    16. Grashof, Nils, 2020. "Putting the watering can away Towards a targeted (problem-oriented) cluster policy framework," Papers in Innovation Studies 2020/4, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    17. Rhiannon Pugh, 2018. "Questioning the implementation of smart specialisation: Regional innovation policy and semi-autonomous regions," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(3), pages 530-547, May.
    18. Emanuela TODEVA & Panagiotis KETIKIDIS, 2017. "Regional Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management: Actors, Helices and Consensus Space," Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy, College of Management, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, vol. 5(1), pages 57-76, March.
    19. João Lopes & Mário Franco, 2019. "Review About Regional Development Networks: an Ecosystem Model Proposal," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 10(1), pages 275-297, March.
    20. Biagi, Bianca & Brandano, Maria Giovanna & Ortega-Argiles, Raquel, 2021. "Smart specialisation and tourism: Understanding the priority choices in EU regions," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regional Policy; Smart Specialisation; Sparsely Populated Areas; territorial diversity; place-based approach; policy integration;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc98691. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Publication Officer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ipjrces.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.