On March 4, 2014 the first TAFTIE Expert Session under the PARP Chairmanship took place in Krakow.

 

The title was: “Smart specialization as a compromise for horizontal vs. sectoral choice?”

 

Smart Specialisation is a strategic approach to economic development through targeted support to research and innovation. More generally, smart specialisation involves a process of developing a vision, identifying competitive advantage, setting strategic priorities and making use of smart policies to maximise the knowledge-based development potential of any region/country, strong or weak, high-tech or low-tech. Smart specialisation understands that spreading investment too thinly across several frontier technology fields risks limiting the impact in any one area.
It will be the basis for Structural Funds investments in R&I as part of the 2014+ Cohesion Policy's contribution to the Europe 2020 jobs and growth agenda. It has also become a reinforcement of R&I agenda for many EU Member States innovation strategies and support measures. Hence, smart specialization process has a substantial influence on TAFTIE members activities. Furthermore, the S3 (smart specialization strategies) process provides unique opportunity for all the innovation systems stakeholders to work together with the aim of taking smart choices so as to create more favourable conditions for innovation.

 

The Expert Session amongst others dealt with the following questions and issues:

    - the first outcomes of the formulation of the smart specialization strategies in Europe,

    - crucial milestones in the implementation of S3 process,
    - how can TAFTIE members build on smart specialization strategies developments in EU support measures?

 

The presentations by the various spekaers can be downloaded here:

Mr. K. Gulda, Vice-chair ERAC (moderator): Introduction Smart specialization approach in the EU R&I agenda – concept and rationale
Mr. Marcin Piątkowski, WorldBank – How to build on smart specialization EU strategies for R&I in global context
Mr. Krzysztof Mieszkowski, RIS3 Platform – Smart specialization toolkit, overview of European regions and countries approaches

prof. Ewa Okoo-Horodyoska - Specialization as a macroeconomic approach for growth in the Małopolska region – case study of Polish regional smart specialization strategy.

Ms. Anna Brussa, Deputy Director & Grzegorz Rzeznik, Chief Expert PARP - Smart specialization within the innovation and cohesion policies - case of Poland 2014+