The first SMARTER Conference on Smart Specialisation and Territorial Development will take place between 28th-30th September 2016 in Seville, Spain. It is co-organised by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the Regional Studies Association.
This conference aims to take stock of the smart specialisation experience and assess its current state of the art both in terms of conceptual developments and practical implementation. It offers to a limited number of participants from academia, European Institutions and territorial authorities, a unique opportunity to discuss these issues, to define the scope and main avenues for future research and policy analysis, and to address the challenges confronting policy makers and practitioners.
The themes of interest to the conference include:
- Smart specialisation five years on:
- Smart specialisation at play: is it a real change?
- Smart specialisation from design to implementation: lessons, challenges, opportunities, experiences.
- Smart specialisation across sectors, policy areas, and intervention instruments: possibilities and constraints.
Smart specialisation beyond borders: experiences from outside Europe.
- Governance and policy processes:
- Models of local governance of smart specialisation and territorial development strategies.
- The multi-level governance of smart specialisation and territorial development strategies.
- The Entrepreneurial Discovery Process: conditions for institutionalisation, sustainability, replicability.
- Forms of stakeholder involvement: from consultation to co-creation of policies.
- Monitoring and evaluation of public policy: between analysis and advocacy, beyond audit.
- Methods of participatory governance.
- Actors:
- Public administrations in smart specialisation and territorial policy: sticking or changing?
- Citizens’ involvement in strategy design and implementation.
- Universities and Higher Education Institutions in smart specialisation.
- Research and Technology Organisations, Business Incubators, Clusters, Science Parks in smart specialisation.
- Financial Institutions in smart specialisation.
- The urban, regional and trans-regional dimension:
- Regions, cities, and city-regions.
- Rural and urban areas: between rivalry and cooperation.
- Urban strategies for innovation and development.
- Smart specialisation in rural and sparsely populated areas.
- Trans-regional and trans-national cooperation.
- European and territorial economic analysis:
- Innovation and growth performance of places and organisations.
- Changing distribution of economic activities.
- Agglomeration and territorial integration.
- Regional and urban resilience and evolution.
Qualitative and/or quantitative policy evaluation of research and innovation funding programmes (e.g. FP7, H2020, Structural Funds and/or national programmes).
- Organisation of production and sectors:
- Clusters and emerging economic networks.
- Interregional, international value chains.
- Emerging technologies and activities.
More information about the conference you can find at: www.regionalstudies.org/conferences/conference/smart-specialisation