Page 112 - Proceeding 2015

FAMP NASTASEANU Ariana
CCASP SMART SPECIALIZATION STRATEGIES AND EMPOWERING CITIZENS

? Evidence-based monitoring and evaluation systems to select the knowledge domains and

innovation projects.

Focus is put to improve the innovation process as the RIS3 requires smart, strategic choices and
evidence-based policy making. Priorities are set on the basis of a bottom-up entrepreneurial discovery

process supported by strategic intelligence about a region’s assets (1), its challenges (2), competitive
advantages and potential for excellence (3).

RIS3 involves making sure that the policy mix, i.e. the combination of policy instruments available in a
given regional environment – grants, loans and other support – is effective in reaching the overall policy

goals, helps businesses, and leverages private investment.

What seemed to be quite a simple concept, focused on regional capabilities plus creating jobs, has
appeared to be more complex and different from previous industrial growth policies. The smart

specialization strategies embrasures the idea of ‘entrepreneurial discovery’ - an interactive process in
which market forces and the private sector are discovering and producing information about new activities

and the government assesses the outcomes and empowers those actors most capable of realising the
potential (Forey, 2012; Hausmann and Rodrick, 2003; OECD, 2013). PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” 30 th – 31 st October 2015 Bucharest

The EU’s initiative to create Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) which are long-standing

strategic partnerships aimed to enable people to create new services, products, to discover solutions to
societal challenges represents a step forward in offering the right platform for the co-creation and ideation.
The so-called ‘knowledge triangle’ is in materialized through a number of iterations (cooperation) between

education, research and business, sometimes with the involvement of the public authorities. Within the
RIS 3 these interactions are called ‘triple/quadruple helix’ and includes the demand-side perspective.

In general the delineation of roles and responsibilities are clearly established: universities provide the

technical, scientific basis without any hook on entrepreneurial activities and links with industry; especially
business schools or consultancy companies may take the lead in such interactions, as they provide a
more practical, hands-on, shorter-term oriented education, which is better suited to meet the knowledge

needs of the small, non-Research & Development (R&D) firms than the programmes of the universities.
Similarly, in the absence of R&D- and technology-intensive companies that are usually involved in Triple
Helix partnerships, professional associations or chambers of commerce representing the interests of the

local business community take the lead in fostering partnerships with academia and government. The
concept of triple helix evolved early 90s by encompassing the voices of the citizens who become thus

legitimate stakeholders in the decision-making process. Arnkil et al. (2010) maintain that the degree of
user involvement could be defined as inclusive of the ‘design by users’. In line with this perspective, new

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