On 30 March, the new Smart Specialisation Strategies Community of Practice (S3 CoP) was launched as the central knowledge and information hub for S3, with ERRIN as part of the S3 CoP Secretariat.

Building on the decade-long experience on S3, S3 CoP aims to offer a broad set of strategic services including guidance, networking, support and peer-learning on S3, covering its conceptual development and its implementation – for example via working groups, pool of experts, targeted support to thematic S3 partnerships, events. The community is open to all S3 stakeholders across regions in EU Member States, including practitioners, policymakers, researchers, businesses, governmental bodies in charge of S3 implementation, industry associations, and civil society organisations – as a space for learning and advancing together.

ERRIN’s role includes contributing to setting up, running and disseminating the results of the activities of the S3 CoP Working Groups, as well as supporting the work around the S3 thematic partnerships and S3 CoP events.

Find the S3 CoP overview, more about ERRIN’s involvement, links with the network’s other activities and benefits for members here. We invite interested ERRIN members to subscribe to the project in their user account settings not to miss any first-hand updates about all new related opportunities.

You may access the new official S3 CoP website here.

On the occasion of the S3 CoP’s launch, two calls for Expression of Interest to join three S3 CoP working groups (WGs) and pool of experts were opened.

Regarding the working groups, each of them will focus on a different fulfilment criterion of the enabling condition “Good governance of national or regional smart specialisation strategy”: Innovation Diffusion, Industrial Transition and Interregional Collaboration.

Following a bottom-up, iterative and peer learning approach to facilitate exchanges of experience among regional stakeholders, the WGs will aim to:

• Collect and document existing knowledge and good practices in different European regions on the fulfilment of the S3 enabling condition, with a special focus on innovation diffusion, industrial transition, and interregional cooperation.
• Identify common needs, problems, and challenges in the European regions. Where relevant, attention will be paid to the most burning challenges as highlighted in the ‘New European Innovation Agenda’ of 2022.
• Co-develop with the regions potential solutions (new approaches, policies, instruments, and coordination mechanisms).
• Support and monitor the deployment of solutions and adapt them to regional specificities.

Each group will include 10-15 members (including the chair and rapporteur) with expertise on the corresponding fulfilment criterion and practical experience of the design and/or implementation of S3 policies. The kick-off meetings are planned to take place virtually (May 2023). There will be two meetings a year for each WG (i.e. a total of 6 meetings for the duration of the project).

Applications to join the WGs should be submitted before 12 May here.

ERRIN Secretariat encourages members to apply as an opportunity to give feedback and help shaping the smart specialisation strategy framework going forward, taking advantage of the possibility to showcase their specific regional ecosystems’ perspectives. We will be pleased to hear from ERRIN members who decide to apply to know about their interest - in such case, feel free to send an email to ewa.chomicz@errin.eu .

For the pool of experts, the survey will remain open for registrations and updates of the registered experts' profiles until 2025.

Find more details, full texts of the two calls for Expression of Interest and apply to join the S3 CoP working groups and the pool of experts here.