Europäischer Rechnungshof - European Court of Auditors
Research and development: Unclear if EU regional specialisation lives up to lofty promises
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Research and development: Unclear if EU regional specialisation lives up to lofty promises
- Over €70 billion earmarked for 2014-2027 to boost R&D in EU regions
- Innovation strategies defined at regional level may not match EU priorities
- Success of the smart specialisation approach has never been clearly evaluated
Fifteen years after they were launched, it is still difficult to establish whether smart specialisation strategies for research and innovation in EU regions are achieving their goals. This is the main observation of an analysis by the European Court of Auditors (ECA). The auditors highlight three main challenges that are yet to be mastered: making sure meaningful priorities are identified and funded, promoting tangible cooperation between EU regions, and assessing whether smart specialisation is actually playing its intended role.
Smart specialisation is an innovation policy approach which aims to make better use of EU cohesion policy funds by identifying promising areas of development. Simply put, smart specialisation is about regions setting priorities for investment, based on their unique strengths and opportunities. Having a smart specialisation strategy is required in order to receive research and innovation funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which has allocated €73.8 billion for this purpose over the 2014 to 2027 period.
“Smart specialisation helps regions to focus their efforts on self-selected priorities. However, at a time when the EU budget is being revamped, with new emphasis on industry and defence, the existing framework means that little is done to assess the value of those priorities or whether they align with the EU’s wider goals”, says Annemie Turtelboom, the ECA Member responsible for the review. “It is crucial to reconcile bottom-up and top-down approaches, and to ensure that measures actually implemented in the regions are consistent with decisions taken at EU level. Otherwise, we will simply fail to achieve a more strategic and effective use of EU funds.”
For the auditors, the smart specialisation process currently lacks oversight. This means that regional priorities may not always align with EU priorities, such as industrial policy goals to produce batteries, microchips, and hydrogen. The fact is that the European Commission has no role in assessing or influencing regional priority choices. As a result, regional priorities and EU-wide innovation goals are mostly implemented independently, with no direct means of ensuring that they work together effectively.
Interregional collaboration can contribute significantly to the success of a smart specialisation strategy, allowing regions to benefit from each other’s experiences and to access new resources, skills, and knowledge. However, many EU regions still do not take advantage of this opportunity. In the 2014-2020 period, interregional collaboration was peripheral to smart specialisation, with cross-border initiatives rarely included in programmes and strategies. Although interregional cooperation has been prioritised for the 2021-2027 period, the level of engagement remains challenging.
Since the outset, monitoring the success of smart specialisation has been difficult, at both regional and EU level. Indeed, the policy has not been thoroughly evaluated since it was introduced in 2014, making it hard to know if it is working. In other words, there is currently no clear answer as to whether this approach is achieving its goals, i.e. helping regions to specialise smartly and strategically, or whether it has turned into a merely formal requirement to secure EU money.
Background information
While the smart specialisation concept emerged in the mid-2000s, it only became a prerequisite to access funding in the 2014-2020 budget, and was later reinforced to become an enabling condition in the 2021-2027 period. 185 smart specialisation strategies were prepared across the EU during the 2014-2020 period, and more than 170 strategies are included for 2021-2027.
Review 05/2025, “Smart specialisation strategies in the EU”, is available on the ECA website. In contrast to an audit, a review provides a descriptive analysis, based mainly on publicly available information.
See also the ECA special report on synergies between Horizon 2020 and the European Structural and Investment funds, which highlighted the different degrees to which EU countries rely on ERDF funding for research and innovation.
Contact:
ECA press office: press@eca.europa.eu