This assignment provides a mid-term assessment of the European Commission’s support (EC) to develop and implement smart specialisation strategies (S3) based on consultations with stakeholders involved in the process. In particular, CSIL carried out an online survey and interviews to gather information across EU28 member states.
EC support comprises a range of instruments providing non-customised (guides), customised (workshops) and highly customised (AMI-CEI experts) support. According to CSIL’s evaluation, support ensured an adequately diversified geographical distribution but highly customised support was abnormally concentrated during design. In many regions, support did not overall succeed in durably changing the situation on the ground. However, some learning did occur in areas with medium innovation performance.
The assignment formulates recommendations for the remaining years of functioning of current arrangements and outlined proposals that could feed the discussion over RIS3 support in the post-2020 programming period. These include, for example, establishing an efficient knowledge management system and streamlining the portfolio of support instruments, particularly by rethinking the management of the AMI-CEI list.