Given its regional industrial strengths (the industry plays a leading role in the regional economy with more than 17% of GDP and jobs) and in order to face economic and technological challenges, the Centre-Val de Loire (CVL) region has made industry renewal one of its top priority. To achieve this objective, CVL continuously seek to boost regional innovation capacity. In this context, the CVL has since 2009 been working on better understanding the concept of Smart specialisation Strategy. CVL RIS3 has been officially approved by the Regional Council on 19th of December 2013.

CVL RIS3 aims to :

• To encourage all types of innovation by strengthening regional research and innovation capacities;
• To make the ecological transition an asset for the industrial fabric;
• To strengthen the region's attractiveness by building on the industry (such as pharmacy, chemistry, cosmetics, mechanical equipment, electrical, electronic and computer equipment) and on tourism sectors having an international dimension
• To enhance the creative capacities of companies through the human capital
• To increase the number of innovative companies from 1000 to 1500 by 2020.

More specifically, the RIS3 objective is to increase the critical mass, visibility and attractiveness of competence centres in the 5 priorities retained in the RIS3. The policy is directly linked with the CVL ERDF OP: Axis 1 Knowledge Society (TO1 directly linked with RIS3, investment priorities 1a and 1b).

The Castilla y León 2014 2020 RIS3 is the regional 2014-2020 R&D and Information Society’s planning document. It is the continuation of a path that Castilla y León started in 1997, which was the precursor of many elements reflected in the previous table and today form part of the European Union’s approach. The elaboration of the Castilla y León RIS3 has followed the six step methodology published by the European Commission’s Smart Specialisation Platform. Smart specialisation of Castilla y León is the top level of the regional policies, RIS3 is articulated around 5 Priorities and 6 Objectives.

TCUE is a particular measure of the RIS3, close to the EDP, as TCUE is at the centre of the regional quadruple helix (government, business, academy and society).

TCUE therefore has a significant potential to improve EDP during the implementation of the RIS3. TCUE is articulated as a network of all the regional universities

fostering knowledge transfer to regional companies, and entrepreneurship.

ERDF OP : Axis 1 “Fostering R&D&I” and Axis 2 “Improving access to ICT” (Digital Agenda) are directly linked to RIS3. The selected measure TCUE is related to ERDF as it is included in the Priority Axis 1.2 of the ERDF Operational Programme of Castilla y León: “Fostering innovation and the development of links between companies and research centres”.

RIS3 is the output of intensified intraregional cooperation between the research sector, the business and the Public Authorities (triple helix model). This strategy is also in line with the national policies on innovation and increasing competitiveness.

Coördination of the RIS3 design in our region was performed by the Centru Regional Development Agency.Functional partnership and working groups were set up:

Regional Committee for Planning and Thematic working groups.

Decisionmaking mechanism for RIS3:

• RDA Centru is in charge with drafting the RIS3
• The RIS3 priorities are settled by RDA Centru together with Regional Committee for Planning based on the draft prepared by RDA Centru
• Finally, the Regional Board of Centru Region has endorsed the RIS3

Setting up our RIS3 priorities

We defined 3 horizontal directions (I, II, V) and 2 specific directions (III, IV) for reaching our goals:

• Building an economic culture of innovation (I)
• Regional research as support for regional businesses (II)
• Areas of excellence for a regional smart development (III)
• Better professional skills for a knowledgebased economy (IV)
• Interregional Cooperation at European level (V)

The Centru RIS3 is related to the following national programmes: the Regional Operational Programme ERDF 20142020, the Operational Programme for the Competiveness 20142020, the Human Capital Operational Programme 20142020.(IV)

Extremadura RIS3 Strategy is an integrated agenda for the economic transformation of the region. Its global objective is increasing the size, added value and global competitiveness of the socioeconomic fabric of Extremadura through policies that enable the use and development of technologies related to the region’s sources of differentiation, fundamentally based on the sustainable exploitation of natural and cultural resources and the capabilities for creating quality of life in its demographic context, in connection with the challenges of Europe 2020 and global opportunitygeneration tendencies. In particular, Extremadura RIS3 Programme C2.3 «Facilitation of Entrepreneurial Discovery Processes» aims at strengthening the links of the value chains affecting the smart specialisation and at facilitating the development of Entrepreneurial Discovery Processes to help the identification of emerging opportunities and niche sectors related to Extremadura specialisation.

The success of this policy instrument demands a global approach to Research, Development and Innovation support policies so as to arrange a multi actor governance, foster the regional specialisation potential through a welldesigned combination of different instruments and asses the results achieved.

RIS3 is directly linked to Extremadura ERDF OP Axis 1 "Strengthening Research, Technological Development and Innovation". Moreover, the promotion of the EDP is

specifically linked to the Priority 1.2.

The Lodzkie Region, in accordance with the RIS 2012 is seen as a weak innovator at the secondary level of progressive growth rate of innovation. The challenge for the

region, enshrined in the Regional Innovation Strategy for the Lodzkie Region (LORIS 2030) is to change this situation and try to eliminate the gap between the Lodzkie

and some of the Western European regions by 2030. LORIS 2030 includes measures that support the development of entrepreneurship, strengthen the cooperation

of enterprises, research and development entities, institutions of business environment and administration and promote the broadly defined innovation in all areas of

economic activity. The 2nd key element is the system of management, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

The main object is: Outlining a vision for specific strategic industries of the region, the directions of their development, the development scenarios as well as defining

the conditions of the effective implementation of the designated activities. The Specific objectives are: mapping of relationships between the groups of key

technologies and the key industries; mapping of regional specialisations, including a description and conditions of creating possible networks of sciencebusiness

relationships, developing the project proposals facilitating the connection and integration of the key groups of technologies with the key industries.

The RIS3 is directly linked with the Lodzkie Region ROP 20142020 (Measure 1.2).

RIS3 aim at transforming regional economies, betting on regional strengths and specialisations. The RIS3 provide a framework to identify the development axis and the specialisations of the regional economy.

In Nord-Pas de Calais, the RIS3 has been designed thanks to an entrepreneurial discovery process. Nord-Pas de Calais identified 6 strategic domains to work on: 

1. Transport and mobility,
2. Nutrition and Health,
3. Ambient Intelligence and Internet of Things,
4. Materials, Chemistry, Recycling,
5. Numeric picturing and Creative industries,
6. Energy.

Moreover, a list of 7 smart specialisations was established, including for example natural ingredients for health, organic textiles, polymers and composites, or design and applications of bio-based products.

With the RIS3, the smart specialisations are to become the new engines of the regional economy. The first challenge is to gather forces from all the regional ecosystem on the long term and to involve all the relevant stakeholders (companies, local authorities, research centres, etc.). A second challenge is to update the RIS3 with new hypothesis of specialisation that could emerge through the EDP. Therefore the improvement of the EDP in terms of methodology, tools and know-how is a key element of the RIS3 success.

RIS3 is directly linked with Nord-Pas de Calais ERDF OP : Axe 1 :

• TO1, SO 1.a.2 ; SO 1.b.1
• TO 3, SO 3.d

The Northern Netherlands (N-NLs) RIS3 aims at broadening and connecting value chains, by creating ‘cross overs’ between sectors and technologies. It supports businesses and knowledge institutes to invest in new chains, products and markets

Pivotal in this process are SME’s. SMEs comprise more than 95% of all companies in the N-NLs. Analysis has shown that these SME’s appear to be insufficiently capable of exploiting existing knowledge and/or generating new knowledge.

The RIS3 addresses this issue by:

• fostering collaboration, between businesses and between businesses and knowledge institutes
• improving the access to knowledge, and
• improving the effectiveness and accessibility of support measures.

The knowledge available within the region is insufficient to come to solutions, so cross-border collaboration plays a key role in this respect. New partnerships are envisaged to be developed, and existing partnerships are encouraged to be extended.

The policy instrument aims to strengthen the knowledge base of SME’s to ensure that they are better equipped to exploit existing knowledge and generate new knowledge. It will expand the innovation system and enable more SME’s to incorporate innovation within their operation.

RIS3 is directly related to the N-NLs Operational Programme ERDF through IP 1.b, SO B.

The RIS3 of Östergötland was established by East Sweden Business Region (ESBR). Included in ESBR are the organisations in Östergötland that are partly or wholly tax funded and which work to support efforts to achieve growth. The RIS3 of Östergötland is unique, the strategy focuses on regional strengths from which all industries/branches can benefit. The five regional strengths of Östergötland are effective logistics, business models and arenas for sustainable system solutions, smart, secure and connected products and systems, simulation and visualisation and advanced materials. The next step is the improvement of the RIS3 process of Östergötland, the aim with the participation in the EDP project is to find an intelligent way of working to use our strengths so that they can add value in the form of innovations and strong competiveness in all industries and all sectors. Region Östergötland is currently trying out a new model for implementation, based on two parts; benefit of applying the strength areas and concrete tools for implementation. In order to improve the strategy, Östergötland needs to share experiences with all regions at different levels regarding RIS3, how can we learn from each other. In order to improve the RIS3, Östergötland requires knowledge regarding the entrepreneurial discovery process, regarding the implementation process of the RIS3 strategy and are also interested to within the project develop a common methodology/language towards businesses/companies.

The regional innovation strategy of Saxony-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt RIS3) fulfils the requirement as ex-ante conditionality of ERDF Funding. Moreover, it also addresses - beside the traditional definition of innovation and funding scheme of ERDF (strengthening research, technological development and innovation as well as competiveness of SME’s) – social innovation and societal challenges like demographic change, skills in demand etc. which correlates with ESF priorities (e.g. life-long learning). So, the Saxony-Anhalt RIS3 is the attempt – as development of the former cluster and innovation strategy - of an overarching strategy for various regional concepts in order to become innovation leader according to the Regional Innovation Scoreboard in 2020.

The programming of ERDF and ESF – in particular ERDF priority axis 1, objective 1 and priority axis 2, objective 3 as well as ESF priority axis 1, objective 8 and priority axis 3, objective 10 – was oriented with focus of these innovation-friendly lead markets. The focus will laid on these measures financed by ERDF and ESF Operational Programme in order to share best practice with other regions with different experience and expertise. We expect that the project will help us to structure the EDP and find sustainable governance structures which enhance tailor-made public policies for the needs of regional business and academia in order to promote cooperation in the Quadruple Helix and foster growth and jobs.

The objective of Umbria Region Strategy of Research and Innovation for Smart Specialisation is: “ To activate local potential by leveraging regional assets, talents , through access to the results of research and the promotion of new entrepreneurship. "

Within this general objective the strategy identifies the expected changes, such as changes and transformations intended to be carried out to build a sustainable competitive advantage for the region and for the regional production system.

The priority areas of Umbria RIS3 coincide with areas of technological specialisation of the Region and they are:

• Energy,
• Smart Manufacturing/aerospace industry;
• Sciences of Life
• Agrifood,
• Green chemistry.

Umbria Region Strategy of Research and Innovation for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) is considered as unified and comprehensive innovation strategy to support a socio-economic change in the region. Therefore it is consider as a fundamental component of economic and development public policies.

The strategy includes measures that will be activated through regional programs financed by the Structural Funds, in particular the Umbria ROP ERDF will activate RIS3 actions under the Priority Axe 1 " Research and Innovation ". Total funds of Umbria ROP ERDF: 342M€, of which 101M€ allocated to Axis 1”research and innovation”