Pilot methodology

Pilot methodology

Smart Specialisation (S3) has been designed as a methodology for knowledge-based economic development agenda. However, the accumulated experience of EU Member States and countries worldwide adopting this approach shows that the priorities and projects chosen in the participative bottom-up processes contribute to a lot of the SDGs and their targets. Having this in mind, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission joined forces with the United Nation's Inter-Agency Task Team on Science, Technology and Innovation Roadmaps for Sustainable Development Goals and decided to adapt S3 to better contribute to SDGs. The pilot methodology is presently tried in Serbia, one of 5 countries taking part in the Global Pilot Programme for STI Roadmaps for SDGs. See below for main steps and achievements so far.

Smart Specialisation Strategy in Serbia

Serbia worked with Joint Research Centre on the development of Smart Specialisation Strategy  adopted by the Government in February 2020. The interlinked priority domains already contribute to SDGs 2, 7, 8 and 9. The identification of these SDGs will be further supported by the SDG mapping shown in the next section.

See more information in the related website.

Smart specialisation priorities of Serbia in a diagram

Source: Smart Specialisation Strategy of the Republic of Serbia

Identification of SDG priorities in policy documents and statistics

​​​​​​​S3 related to Goal 3 Good Health and Well being diagram

Source: SIRIS Academic for European Commission, Joint Research Centre

SDG mapping starts with the analysis of the SDGs and their targets prioritised in the national policy assessments. It is later followed by the overview of the statistical indicators, where Serbia as a pilot country is compared to the EU 27.

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Serbian STI for SDGs networks

Main topics of STI activities

The analysis of STI records covered scientific publications, patents, EU-funded research and innovation projects and STI activities financed by Serbian Innovation Fund.

​​​World cloud related to goal 7 - affordable and clean energy

Source: SIRIS Academic for European Commission, Joint Research Centre

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STI for SDGs potential in Serbia: results

SDG interlinkages in STI outputs

The Sustainable Development Goals are a cohesive agenda. Goals and targets are interrelated, and development pathways addressing a goal can have positive, as well as negative, consequences on other goals. This section presents an analysis of the overlap between the STI activities, results and capacities in the different goals.
SDG interlinkages in STI outputs diagram

Source: SIRIS Academic for European Commission, Joint Research Centre

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Potential impact of Smart Specialisation on SDGs