An international conference on SMART Specialization was held in Kyiv
An international conference for the representatives of the government, business, science and the public „SMART Specialization: Dialogue Leading to Transformation of the Region“ took place on November 27-28, 2019 in Kyiv. The representative of the Department of Regional Development of Cherkasy Regional State Administration attended the conference.
The event was organized by the Ukrainian Institute for International Politics together with the Ministry of Economic Development in order to monitor the first results of SMART specialization implementation in Ukraine and to enhance communication between the government and local stakeholders. The organizational support for the event was also provided by the Institute of Economics and Forecasting of NAS of Ukraine.
The SMART specialization, or the SMART Specialization strategy, is an approach developed by the European Commission within the framework of the Innovation Union initiative. The approach helps to identify those economy sectors that have innovative potential and to build mutually beneficial partnerships for their development. It enables the region to enhance its own competitiveness. For over a year, the SMART Specialization approach has been actively implemented in Ukraine. It became possible thanks to the joint efforts of the Ukrainian Ministry of Economic Development and the Joint Research Center of the European Commission. After participating in a series of training events, expert missions and other initiatives related to the effective use of the approach, the representatives of the authorities, science and business community began to develop SMART specializations in their regions. These SMART specializations are being integrated into the regional development strategies for the next program period of 2020-2027.
The following issues were discussed during the conference:
▪ the first results and practices of Ukraine’s pilot regions;
▪ expert support in finding financial resources and tools for SMART specialization implementation;
▪ the results of expert support in the regions;
▪ best practices of business-science collaboration;
▪ communication between stakeholders of the SMART specialization development process in Ukraine.
There were also lively discussions concerning other issues related to the introduction of SMART specialization.
