Summary Report on RIS3 implementation status in Greece (November, 2017)

Abstract

This report was commissioned by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) in the framework of the “Support to RIS3 Implementation in selected Lagging Regions” project that has been launched in 2016. One of the main goals of the project is to contribute to further refinement of the RIS3 model and advancing understanding of implementation issues of smart specialisation by codifying hands-on experience in different contexts. 

The report summarises the current situation in terms of implementation of RIS3 in Greece, by taking stock of activities on RIS3 in each of the 13 Greek regions and of the national RIS3 respectively. Apart from the obvious objective of revealing state of implementation in Greek regions, the report is aiming at the development and implementation of a cross-learning approach to RIS3 key issues among Greek regions. 

The RIS3 in Greece was developed following a hybrid model both at national and at regional level (13 regional plus 1 national smart specialisation strategies). All partial strategies have been approved by the European Commission and the ESIF funds are distributed between national and regional operational programmes (larger share of funding is being managed at the national level). At the national level all Calls for Proposals (CfPs) are financed by the Operational Programme “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship & Innovation” (EPANEK) and the role for planning, issuing CfPs, management of selected projects and monitoring has been assigned to General Secretariat of Research & Technology (GSRT) for Thematic Objective 1. At the regional level the respective financial instrument is the Regional Operational Programme (ROP) and CfPs are issued by the regional Management Authorities (MA).