Addis Ababa Action Agenda recognises science, technology and innovation as a means to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Starting in November 2018, Joint Research Centre of European Commission has been working to share and develop the European experience on Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) as one of the global methodologies for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Roadmaps for the achievement of SDGs. At the same time, there has been a growing focus on SDGs in EU Member States and EU Neighbourhood. That is why the work stream on Smart Specialisation and SDGs has been divided in two synergetic parts:

1. Cooperation with UN DESA and UN Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) on the development of the global Guidebook on STI Roadmaps for SDGs and Global Pilot Programme on STI for SDGs.

   The cooperation so far has included an officially recognized JRC contribution to the UN Guidebook on STI Roadmaps for SDGs and inclusion of JRC in the core IATT (Inter-Agency Task Team) group working on the Global Pilot Programme for STI Roadmaps for SDGs, where JRC is the lead organisation working with Serbia, one of 5 pilot countries.  JRC also had an active, high-level participation in the UN STI Forum in New York (2019) and is working with UN-DESA on a special event on STI Roadmaps for SDGs during the UN STI Forum 2020.

2. Strengthening the connection between S3 and SDGs in EU Member States and Neighbourhood Regions

   In this area, JRC is developing a new methodological approach for Sustainable Smart Specialisation Strategies, piloted in Serbia, but targeted for EU MS. So far, good practice examples at urban, regional and national level have been collected. They will be presented at a workshop summarizing the achievements so far, with concrete implementation examples (back to back with the meeting of UN Global Pilot Programme) on 5 March 2020 in Brussels.