Smart Specialisation Platform on Energy / ERRIN “Embedding Energy Union in the Regions”

Background
The S3P-Energy is a joint initiative of the Directorates-General for Regional and Urban Policy, Energy, and the Joint Research Centre (JRC). The S3P-Energy is planned to become an enabling tool for regions to coordinate, rationalise and plan their respective energy strategies, develop a shared vision on knowledge-based energy policy development, and set up a strategic agenda of collaborative work. The main objective of the S3P-Energy is to support the optimal and effective uptake of the Cohesion Policy funds for energy, and to better align energy innovation activities at national, local and regional level through the identification of the technologies and innovative solutions that support in the most cost-effective way the EU energy policy priorities. The S3P-Energy will contribute the EU energy policy priorities by facilitating partnerships between EU regions that have identified renewable energy technologies and innovative energy solutions as their smart specialisation priorities and by promoting alignment between local, regional, national and European activities on energy sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply[1].

Founded in 2001, ERRIN is a unique platform of more than 120 dynamic EU regions and their Brussels representation offices and regional stakeholders. ERRIN promotes knowledge exchange, joint actions and project partnerships between its members in order to strengthen regional research and innovation capacities. ERRIN has fourteen working groups led by regions and the Energy and Climate Change Working Group has been a strong player in contributing to EU energy policy and supporting project development over the past five years

Objectives
The workshop’s overall objective is to raise the awareness of the platform with regions that have energy in their smart specialisation and to identify:

• Opportunities for strategic clustering and future transnational project opportunities
• Objectives and benefits for regions of S3 Energy platform and ERRIN network
• Areas of regional focus in energy
• Perceived strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for regions in promising areas of specialisation

Methodology

• The workshop will be open to all regions with energy identified as a  priority in their  smart specialisation strategy (see for instance: Eye@RIS3[2])
• The workshop is targeted at the managing authorities and intermediary bodies who are central to the innovation ecosystem and priority setting at regional level
• All participants regions will be required to complete a questionnaire, including a SWOT analysis in an area chosen from a selection of priorities identified in the EU’s Energy Union strategy
• It will be structured around three sessions:

-  Understanding the policy context and priorities – the new S3 Energy Platform and EU Energy Policy
-  Exploring opportunities and challenges for smart specialisation in energy
- Fostering information sharing and clustering around complementary regional priorities, strengths and weaknesses for project development

• The second session exploring opportunities and challenges will involve a story telling format featuring selected regional case studies and an interactive question session.
• The third session exploring future collaboration and clustering opportunities will bring together regions with complementarities, as identified from their SWOT analysis.
• The workshop will invite other strategic, EU-level energy stakeholders e.g. Inno-Energy KIC, Climate-KIC, EUREC, EERA, EUROGHIA+ cluster, European Energy Network, EIB (ELENA), Smart Cities action cluster leads.
• Regions taking part in the workshop must complete the following survey in  Annex 1.

[1] http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/s3p-energy

[2] http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/eye-ris3