Methodology approach on benchmarking Regional Innovation on Smart Specialisation (RIS3): a joint macro-regional tool to regional performance evaluation and monitoring in Central Europe

Abstract

The current funding period of the European Union 2014 -2020 advocates the application of the Smart Specialisation approach that has to be implemented on regional level. European NUTS-2 regions shall evaluate and reconsider their regional strategies for the upcoming funding period. Due to the high differences among the regions in terms of existing monitoring systems and policies, the performance measurement lacks a solid basis for a sufficient comparison, exemplification and transfer. In order to reduce this research gap, within this paper, the authors developed a comprehensible methodological tool using a given number of NUTS-2 regions with their distinctive monitoring systems and indicators in Central Europe. The benchmarking process is focusing on deploying existing performance indicators * This research was supported by the Interreg project "SMART_watch" project that was implemented in the frame of the Interreg Central Europe Programme 2014-2020 from June 2017 to May 2020. The project is based on the research and practical gaps highlighting the needs to support and enhance monitoring capacity of the regions in terms of Smart Specialisation.

Marketing and branding strategy for the South Baltic Sea Region: reinforcing regional innovation in SMEs through cross-border collaboration models in the age of transformation

“…Here, SMEs will need to find new ways of operation through the lens of the European Green Deal, in particular, Regional Innovation on Smart Specialisation (RIS3) concepts' utilisation (EC, 2020b;Gerlitz et al, 2020). In this particular context, marketing strategy might serve as a source of innovation and thus competitive strength, since the research contends that marketing formulation and implementation has positive effects SMEs innovativeness performance (Finoti et al, 2017).…”

Integration of Baltic Small and Medium-Sized Ports in Regional Innovation Strategies on Smart Specialisation (RIS3)

“…The concepts of Smart Specialisation as policy innovation have been analysed and exploited well in existing research [4,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42], including its literature reviews [43][44][45][46]. However, researchers also emphasised still missing scientific theoretical conceptualisation for this innovation policy [34,43,47]. In context of such research on the Smart Specialisation paradigm, articles highlight the importance of stakeholder involvement on several levels including vertical and horizontal perspectives [48][49][50].…”

“…In addition, the impact of priority setting will be analysed vice versa on the port performances using available data from Eurostat at the beginning and end of the funding period 2014-2020 on waterborne trades (cargo and ferry). As European regions are revising their strategies through performance evaluation and monitoring, knowledge generation on potentials for facilitating sustainable development from past funding period is now crucial for new strategy designing [34,35].…”

Innovative Methodological Approach to Analyze Innovation and Social Impact

“…Other studies, instead of quantitative methods, use qualitative ones. This can be seen, for instance, in the use of the Benchmarking method to rank the countries in relation to innovation (Gerlitz et al, 2020), or the use of the interviews in the example of the analysis of the innovative practices on equal participation of women in politics in Kerala linked to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of the United Nations Organization (Babu & Jose, 2020). Another study found the sustainability of urban surfaces could be assessed with a method of SDG based on a top-down approach for identifying innovations’ potential contribution to the achievement of SDG before its introduction (Henzler et al, 2020).…”