EU Macro-Regional Strategies
Four EU macro-regional strategies, covering several policies, have been adopted so far.
EU Macro-Regional Strategies
S3 cooperation in the frame of the EU Macro-Regional Strategies
To date, the European Union has put in place strategies for four macro-regions:
- the EU Macro-Regional Strategy on the Baltic Sea Region – EUSBSR,
- the EU Macro-Regional Strategy on the Danube Region – EUSDR,
- the EU Macro-Regional Strategy on the Adriatic and Ionian Region – EUSAIR, and
- the EU Macro-Regional Strategy on the Alpine Region – EUSALP.
These strategies all together concern 19 EU Member States and 6 non-EU countries.
The EU Macro-Regional Strategies (MRS) serve as multi-level platforms bringing together in an organised way national, regional authorities, sectorial ministries and agencies, managing authorities of programmes, academia, research, entrepreneurs, local associations and other stakeholders such as civil society to tackle the common challenges. Bottom-up approach supported by the MRS is very important for the S3 strategies.
What is the rationale?
By participating in macro-regional strategies, regional and national policymakers have an opportunity to:
- Discuss the transnational dimension of S3, its importance, relevance, and practical issues
- Learn about available analytical tools and implementation instruments, including value chain activities through cross-cluster and cross-region cooperation
- Examine various cooperation opportunities and steps to be taken in order to stimulate transnational cooperation in areas of smart specialisation
- Explore common interests and set up collaborative projects
- Jointly consider how to mobilise relevant funding sources that will support their projects
- Provide more appropriate common or coordinated replies to global issues, and thus increase the competitiveness of the macro-region.
Collaboration in S3 on macro-regional level could allow partners to take advantage of European regional diversity, as a group of regions might develop strategies based on co-evolution and complementarity. Such a collaborative approach to policymaking can be expected to boost critical mass and knowledge complexity while further supporting ongoing entrepreneurial discoveries in various types of regions
Stakeholders
What facilitates S3 cooperation in the MRS?
Related links
Latest news
The S3 Platform seeks to collect information from all stakeholders involved in S3 related activities about emerging initiatives that respond to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as redeployment/reorganisation of activities that foster recovery processes.
Events
JRC Active participation at the European Maritime Days’ 2022 Thematic Session 3 on “Sustainable Blue Economy Implementation through Smart Specialisation”
Smart Specialisation in the Arctic Regions
Workshop on Research and Innovation in the EUSAIR
Publications
The smart Specialisation strategy design and implementation offer European territories a solid paradigm for developing effective innovation governance, improving innovation policy capacities, enhancing public-private partnerships, offering common platform for inter-regional cooperation...
- Jan Post, Pieter de Jong, Matt Mallory, Mathieu Doussineau, Ales Gnamus
The fourth edition of the yearly EU Blue Economy Report provides a new perspective on the impacts that several factors have on the Blue Economy, including global challenges like climate change, emerging sectors such as maritime security and surveillance, enabling frameworks such as Maritime...
- Multiple Authors
This report explores applications of smart specialisation in sparsely populated European Arctic Regions. The paper provides an overview of the specific context of Arctic regions and examples of how smart specialisation has been implemented there with aim to discover how smart specialisation and...
- Jukka Teräs, Viktor Salenius, Laura Fagerlund and Lina Stanionyte