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Massive Open Online Course on how to design Smart Specialisation Strategies, 7 October - 20 December


22 July 2019

The concept of smart specialisation has had an immense impact in Europe and beyond after the European Council’s decision to adopt smart specialisation as an essential principle of European regional policies.


Even though the general principles are well known in Europe by now, the actual implementation and monitoring processes of Smart Specialisation Strategies remain rather uncommon in the applied fields. However, the cohesion between innovation environments needs to grow in order to strenghten the development of new environments. We are convinced that the smart specialisation approach has great potential – even beyond Europe: especially in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia – to assist policy makers, experts and public agencies in structuring their policy and development programmes.

This Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) offers an overview of the concept and methods allowing the design and appli-cation of a smart specialisation strategy on the regional or national scale. Furthermore, the course intends to motivate its participants to take action and develop a smart specialisation strat-egy for their respective regions. It combines formal presentations, many case studies carried out in the field, as well as first-hand accounts.

It is especially intended for public policymakers on the regional, national and inter-national level as well as for those responsible for development policies. Furthermore, it addresses experts and analysts who develop consulting services in this domain or work in international or-ganisations. as well as Master and PhD students and researchers in the fields of economics of innovation, technology policy and regional studies.

The course is directed and supervised by Prof Dominique Foray and Martin Eich-ler. Dominique Foray developed the concept and has been deeply involved in European smart specialisation policy between 2009 and 2013. Martin Eichler is the chief economist at BAK Eco-nomics, an expert in regional economic analysis and an experienced consultant to many regions in terms of regional benchmarking and economic assessment.

Durection: 7 October 2019 – 20 December 2019. Course enrolment is free of charge.

For more information and registration, please visit the MOOC website.

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