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What is smart specialisation?

Specialisation is a driving force that enables the exploitation of economies of scale and differentiation for the creation of economic value. Smart specialisation is a policy framework combining industrial, innovation as well as educational policies (including their design, implementation, and evaluation) in order to promote new growth opportunities based on innovation and knowledge. The smart specialisation approach thus aims to support innovation-based economic growth strategies at different levels of government and policymaking based on:

• A more effective spending of public resources, concentrating on certain domains of knowledge or expertise.
• The creation of synergies between public support mechanisms for R&D and innovation, industrial promotion and training institutions.
• The elimination of fragmentation and duplication of policy interventions that may result in a waste of public resources.
• The identification of the strongest or promising domains for entrepreneurship and growth through a careful analysis of the existing capabilities, assets, competences, competitive advantages in a city, region or country.
• Mechanisms to enable strategic development based on multi-faceted and multi-governance interactions.
• Mapping and benchmarking of cluster including analyses of the role and influence of key players.
• Evidence-based monitoring and evaluation systems to select the knowledge domains and innovation projects

Events

OECD Outreach Workshop on Smart Specialisation for Innovation-Driven Growth: Its Extension to East Asia
Organised by STEPI, Gwangju Technopark and the OECD
Sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Korea and Gwangju Metropolitan City
3-5 April 2013, Gwangju, Korea

Joint EU-OECD High-level Seminar for Smart Specialisation
Organised by the OECD and the European Commission (DG Regio)
5 December 2012, Brussels

Second OECD Workshop on Smart Specialisation: Case Studies and Governance Profiles
10-11 May 2012, Paris, France

Joint Expert Meeting on the “Self-assessment Tool” and the “S3 Guide”
OECD, Austrian Delegation and EU (DG Regio and IPTS)
28-29 March 2012, Linz, Austria

First Joint Workshop on Smart Specialisation Strategies: Concepts and Tools
Hosted by Andalusia and co-organised by the Andalusian Government, OECD and IPTS
22-24 November 2011, Seville, Spain

Virtual community
https://community.oecd.org/community/smartspecialisation  

This is a web discussion and sharing space aimed at guiding participating countries and regions.
Presentations made at the above events are also available.

Contacts

Mario Cervantes: Mario.Cervantes@oecd.org
Inmaculada Perianez: Inmaculada.Perianez-Forte@oecd.org