Expert group has discussed the possible SMART-priorities
On September 2019 the working group started to discuss the focus areas of SMART-specialization, which in the future may be included into the Development strategy of Cherkasy region for the period of 2021 – 2027. The working group consisted of the representatives of business, science, regional development establishments and Department of regional development.
The head of regional development department Roman Karmannik said: “Development of regional Strategy based on the SMART-specialization principles involves a reasonable definition of economic activity areas with big innovative potential. It is also necessary to take into account the peculiarities of the region which will contribute to the growth and positive transformation of the regional economy. The process of search and rationalizing of such economy areas is called the entrepreneurial discovery process. Moreover, it is really important to involve the representatives of business and science into this process.
Liubov Ropalo, the head of Cherkasy regional development agency informed those present at the meeting that in the EU more than 120 of such national and regional strategies were developed and 67 billion EUR were spent since implementation of SMART-specialization principles. The main point of this idea is – not to spread money received from the EU equally among all economic activity areas but to concentrate on several narrow areas of regional development which can be supported by European funds, and, as a result, to obtain better results for the region. Surely, these narrow areas of regional development can be chosen only with the help of profound analysis.
The JRC (Joint Research Center) project has analyzed statistics to reflect economic and innovative potential of every Ukrainian region. A report based on the results of this analysis was prepared and presented by the Deputy Head of the regional development department of Cherkasy regional state administration Serhii Danylenko. The discussion arose after the report results had been presented. The members of the working group made a number of comments and suggestions, which concerned the fact that the data of some industry branches (services, agriculture, building and construction) wasn’t analyzed.
The head of regional development department has also added: “The main goal of this process is to focus on some promising economic areas, even if they don’t fit the statistical analysis. To choose Smart-specialization is not all. More important is to create mutual projects of business and science and to implement them in the future.
In the course of the discussion it was decided that the deeper analysis of certain sectors is necessary. The next step is to identify the enterprises that carry out their activity within this framework, as well as the scientific institutions that carry out or can carry out research in these areas.
