Smart specialisation policy strategy for interregional cooperation: pushing less-developed regions

The concept of Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) is one of the key policy instruments for Europe’s regional development. The strategy considers the regional sectoral diversity to build a competitive advantage and increase the position in the knowledge economy. Particularly less-developed regions can benefit in this context when Smart Specialisation is promoted as the primary instrument of European Cohesion Policy. One strategy to develop the competitive advantage of moderate innovator regions is to develop a common, collaborative strategy to overcome regional disparities by leveraging regional growth potential. A methodology is presented by the authors, which is suggested to be accompanied for the identification of Smart Specialisation Strategies in an interregional context. The objective of this is to supply a novel method for interregional Smart Specialisation development and to improve its outward-looking orientation