Massive Open Online Course zum Thema Smart Specialisation Strategies
Lecturers
The course will be directed and supervised by Dominique Foray, who was the creator of the concept and was then deeply involved in European smart specialisation policy between 2009 and 2013 as well as Martin Eichler, chief economist at BAK Economics (BAK), who is involved in developing indicators to support regions in terms of regional benchmarking and economic assessment
About the Course
The smart specialisation concept, originally developed by D. Foray (EPFL), P. David (Stanford) and B. Hall (Berkeley) within the framework of a European Commission Expert Group, involves both a general innovation policy concept and a method designed to operationalize this concept. This method enables regions to design a regional innovation policy to encourage the emergence and growth of innovation microsystems in the selected sectors.
This concept and its concrete developments have had an immense impact in Europe and then beyond after the European Council’s decision to adopt smart specialisation as an essential principle of European regional policies.
Although the smart specialisation approach and method are now well known in Europe (at least the general principles), they still remain an unknown quantity elsewhere. And yet this approach has huge potential – especially in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia – to assist policymakers, experts and public agencies in structuring their policy and development programme. This is why, by means of the smart specialisation concept and approach, this course will address not only innovation policy issues in developed countries but also development by innovation issues and structural change in the least developed countries.
Remarks
The course is free.