Energy is a topic with high interest amongst the Member States and regions registered in the S3 Platform. The S3PEnergy promotes activities for achieving a shared vision on knowledge-based energy policy, accompanying European territories in the implementation of energy-related innovation strategies and supporting them with the appropriate methodological development and related tools, with regard namely to benchmarking, mutual learning and interregional cooperation.

The goal of the S3PEnergy is to set up a collaborative framework which will accelerate the development and deployment of innovative low carbon technologies in the EU in the framework of Smart Specialisation.

The S3PEnergy collaborates with interested EU regions and countries to: analyse current energy priorities and policies; identify common challenges and possible solutions; prepare thematic papers and workshops; carry out active outreach activities to build and disseminate knowledge on the possibilities for investing in energy projects from the Cohesion Policy funds; support bottom-up transregional cooperation and the creation of EU-wide ecosystems for R&I in energy.

As a result of this support to interterritorial cooperation, the S3PEnergy has facilitated the creation of interregional partnerships between those EU regions and Member States that have identified renewable energy technologies and innovative energy solutions as their smart specialisation priorities. Through these partnerships the S3PEnergy had promoted the alignment of local, regional, national and European activities on energy sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply.

Interregional collaboration helps Member States and regions to combine complementary strengths and research capacities, align R&I efforts and agendas in the context of S3, overcome the lack of critical mass and fragmentation, gain better access to the global value chains and foster co-investment in new growth areas across the EU. So far, six partnerships have been created, with the ultimate goal to establish European ecosystems for interregional collaboration in regions and countries that share similar energy priorities in their S3.
 

The S3PEnergy interregional partnerships have been focusing on mapping regional ambitions and challenges and matching identified value chains of partners across the regions, based on complementarities. The S3PEnergy team supports the regions with the identification of common interests and proactive match-making, methodological guidance, organisation of thematic seminars, setting up of connections with other initiatives or EC services related to their field of activity, as well as with logistic support for the functioning of the partnerships.