‘Smart specialisation’ postulates that a region can benefit from specialising in a particular area of science and technology and that regional development and growth become knowledge- and innovation-driven, thereby stimulating structural change.
However, smart specialisation constitutes a significant challenge for many countries in the region, especially in the absence of prior experience and established knowhow and great variations in regional capacities to implement RIS3. Moreover, not only RIS3 is a new policy instrument, but also Blue Growth itself is still a relatively new concept.
That is why six Smart Blue Regions from the BSR, led by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Schleswig Holstein, have embarked on cooperating in the project SMART BLUE REGIONS. On one hand they aim in the transnational context to increase their operational capacity to implement RIS3. On the other hand they aim to optimise their own set of blue growth specific RIS3 implementation measures by integrating good practice cases from other regions and / or sectors.
“One of the biggest challenges while working on the project is to deal with the disparities between the regions in their advancement with introducing RIS3 , says Magda-Leszczyna-Rzucidło from ‘Pomorskie in the EU’ Association , who is one of the partners of the Project. Moreover, some countries implement RIS3 from regional, and some from national level.”
The project partners have an ambition to spur a number of follow-up projects and cooperation. As such the whole BSR might become a model maritime region in Europe. The intensive activity of the partners can be seen in various Project-related events, such as the forthcoming Smart Blue Regions project Workshop ‘Offshore Wind Energy Supply Chain – future outlook for technologies and cooperation’ which will be held on 26th April 2018 in Gdańsk.
“The aim of the workshop is to explore and define possibilities of transnational cooperation among entrepreneurs representing offshore industry in the Baltic Sea Region making use of RIS3 processes and EU funding, says Magda-Leszczyna-Rzucidło. The meeting's formula will be tailored to the needs of the participants, whose expectations will be collected during registration for the workshop until 10th April 2018”.
More information about SMART BLUE REGIONS and registration to the event on the project website.
SMART BLUE REGIONS project works under the umbrella of the SUBMARINER network which is a Flagship of the EUSBSR under the Policy Area Innovation.