Smart Specialisation and Innovation in Rural Areas

This Policy Brief has the twin aims of showing that Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (S3), despite their sectoral origins, provide a favourable and supportive framework for innovation in rural areas and, on the other hand, that there is a wide range of innovation activities in rural areas, often unmentioned in the innovation policy literature, which can strongly benefit from and reinforce the impact of the new generation of European Regional Policy.

Abstract

This Policy Brief has the twin aims of showing that Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (S3), despite their sectoral origins, provide a favourable and supportive framework for innovation in rural areas and, on the other hand, that there is a wide range of innovation activities in rural areas, often unmentioned in the innovation policy literature, which can strongly benefit from and reinforce the impact of the new generation of European Regional Policy. The paper discusses the most significant elements of S3 related to regional development in rural areas, presenting the main challenges and opportunities for knowledge-led development with reference to both the current policy and theoretical landscapes and some relevant emerging regional experiences. In particular, we investigate how the main novelties of S3 seem able to overcome the urban bias of past innovation policies, when the rural dimension of innovation has often been neglected, affecting its contribution to economic growth and regional development related to rural resources and actors.

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