How is S3 aligning with the European Green Deal and the UN 2030 Agenda? A new report on SDGs gives us food for thought
Publication “Smart Specialisation, Sustainable Development Goals and Environmental Commons” is now available. The report is proposing a new narrative that is set to provide guidance for the next phase of Smart Specialisation activities. It seeks to align Smart Specialisation with the European Green Deal and the UN 2030 Agenda by offering directionality and combining different levels of policy to achieve the needed sustainability transformations. It adds on to the on-going debate and methodological underpinning of place-based innovation strategies for sustainability (S4).
The paper has a particular emphasis on the environmental commons and it analyses the relations of the new directionality resulting from a set of globally shared values with the traditionally bottom-up approach of Smart Specialisation. It then takes a closer look at the new challenges such as the policy coherence needed to drive systemic change and resulting need of multi-level governance. Yet another aspect is the post-COVID 19 recovery challenge.
A number of selected cases are included in the publication to better illustrate the conceptual discussion developed from a theoretical perspective. They consider and evaluate present lessons learned by EU and non-EU countries and regions on different subjects linked to Smart Specialisation, sustainability and environmental commons. The paper concludes its contribution by stressing an exchange of ideas on how to orient existing Smart Specialisation approaches towards sustainability challenges and the achievement of the SDGs.
Access full report HERE
