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Smart specialization in the vicious circle of the EU periphery

The inclusion of universities in the regional development since 1990- s has been widely endorsed in theoretical texts and policy documents in EU (David and Metcalfe, 2007) from Lisbon agenda 2000 to the Smart specialisation strategy /S3/ (Foray et al., 2012). A great deal of European structural and investment funds /ESIF/ are dedicated to strengthening the role of R&D in regional development of the science periphery countries within European cohesion policy (Bonaccorsi, 2016). Nevertheless, today this policy concept is contested especially in the countries of science periphery (here Croatia as case study) due to „regional innovation paradox“. In the paper are analysed the attitudes of the Croatian scientific community toward S3 and ESIF collected within the research project that investigated how scientists perceive the changes in the structure of the research system. Since the financial cuts in public research funding should raise the relevance of S3 and ESIF for majority of scientists, a survey examined its’ four aspects: the intention to apply to ESIF programmes calls ; assessment of ESIF and S3 contribution to scientific and economic development ; their impact on research activities ; the barriers to the realisation of S3. The results indicate the fear that S3 is based on the false assumption that universities and public institutes’ research may compensate for deindustrialization and poor venture capital. Therefore, in EU periphery S3 cannot replace national science policy, nor does ESIF replaces national funding resources.

smart specialization, regional development, EU periphery, science policy

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