What is RIS3?

RIS3, a regional/national research and innovation strategy for Smart Specialisation, is a relatively new policy concept developed by the European Union. It has been adopted as part of the EU cohesion policy and has become a precondition for receiving funding from European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Hence, RIS3 strategy development has become an important activity for regional and national level authorities in the EU.

Smart Specialisation is about identifying a region’s key activities, areas or technological domains that given them a competitive advantage and about focusing efforts on those activities, areas and/or domains. In other words, R&D and innovation funding should not be spread thinly across a broad range of technology areas but should rather focus on carefully selected priority areas that give a region an inter-regional competitive advantage.