Evaluating the implementation of Smart Specialisation policy

The Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3) is at the core of 2014–20 European Cohesion Policy, supporting regions to identify technologies and economic sectors that might comprise sustainable growth paths. This paper provides an early attempt assess empirically, for whole Union, whether choices made by in selecting S3 target are consistent with their current or potential specialization patterns. Results show only a few selected paths rooted both specializations related activities, most them prioritized different combinations unspecialized unrelated sectors, thus limiting policy choices.