Efforts to Implement Smart Specialization in Practice—Leading Unlike Horses to the Water

Abstract

This paper reflects on the implementation of the RIS3 policy agenda. Based on two surveys and various phone interviews, it underlines that Europe's diverse pattern of institutional arrangements poses locally contingent policy challenges in which regional governance capacities are at least as important an issue as techno-economic potentials. In detail, it demonstrates how Southern Europe profited from novel practices while Eastern Europe had to invest substantially to change existing routines. Concluding, it argues that the main merit of RIS3 processes may, in fact, lie in their contribution to changing routines and practices of governance even if those, for now, remain without measurable effect on policy.

Acknowledgements

While the conclusions and opinions outlined in this paper are entirely his own, the author is indebted to Prof. Knut Koschatzky for financing this research from internal means as well as his colleagues Emmanuel Muller, Esther Schnabl and Andrea Zenker who substantially contributed to building the quantitative and qualitative database that this study draws on as a follow-up to an earlier joint paper.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.