Save the date for the Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) Conference 2024, which will take place this year on 11-12 December in Rimini, Italy. The flagship event for S3 stakeholders from across regions in EU Member States is organised by DG REGIO and S3 CoP Secretariat, in partnership with Emilia-Romagna Region and with the support of the Municipality of Rimini and Palacongressi di Rimini.

S3 practitioners, experts, policymakers, and other key stakeholders will come together to engage in this bottom-up event to network, discuss S3 policy and implementation issues and exchange information and good practices. In addition, the S3 Conference will bring together regions recognised as Regional Innovation Valleys under the New European Innovation Agenda flagship action.

The S3 Conference 2024 will be centred around three pillars:  

• Successful S3 design and implementation: fostering place-based innovation, enabling sustainable and resilient economic developmen: challenges, capacities, and policy mix. It will explore how S3 can foster place-based innovation while ensuring resilience and strategic autonomy in the territories and EU as a whole.
• S3 and interregional collaboration: We will learn from many experiences related to interregional collaboration, exploring challenges, opportunities, and mechanisms to align different instruments with regional strategies and capacity building tools. 
• Smart Specialisation and its role for connecting Regional Innovation Valleys in key thematic areas identified in the New European Innovation Agenda, namely: green, digital, food, health, energy, raw materials, and manufacturing. Examples from regions and the newly launched RIV projects supported by I3 and EIE.

While the S3 Conference will be a one-day event (11 of December), there will be a set of side events on the next day (12 of December). The conference if free of charge, but participants and speakers are expected to cover their travel and accommodation expenses.

Applications to present at the conference are currently open for all interested regional/national policy makers, S3 partnerships, practitioners and researchers. Interested parties are invited to submit their proposals for one of the pillars described above, including speaker and topic details, by 30 June.

More details about the conference and the application form to present at the conference can be found here.