4: Aligning European Initiatives and Funding Instruments to Tackle Place-Based Societal Challenges Through Regional Innovation Policy (Arnault Morisson, Francesco Cappellano, Manuel Laranja)
Research and innovation policies are evolving, increasingly embracing challenge-driven approaches to address pressing societal issues (Schot & Steinmueller, 2018). In the current European Union (EU) programming period (2021-2027), regions are encouraged to align their research and innovation strategies with the EU’s digital and green twin transitions. This policy direction is integrated into strategic frameworks, such as a more directional and transformative Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3). To support these efforts, it is crucial to provide the necessary funding instruments that aid national and subnational decision-makers in implementing their priorities and future actions. Adopting a collaborative policy approach, exemplified by Partnerships for Regional Innovation (PRI) (Pontikakis et al., 2022), represents a significant shift. However, this new policy approach is complex and demands policymakers to dismantle existing silos, align policy rationales, actors, and instruments (Reid et al., 2023). This alignment necessitates the development of new policy and administrative skills and capacities (Laranja, 2023). Moreover, this synchronisation of rationales, actors, and instruments takes place within a multi-level context, where place-based strategies can be supported not only by the European Regional Development Fund and the Recovery and Resilience Programmes but also by initiatives like Horizon Europe.
An example of such alignment comes from Catalonia, Spain, with the RIS3CAT Shared Agendas (Generalitat de Catalunya, 2023). These shared policy platforms offer an intriguing model for fostering regional partnerships and developing the necessary policy capacities required to execute truly participatory processes. These processes are essential for discovering and exploring promising pathways and regional initiatives that utilise integrated funding, as well as other non-funding instruments, to address significant societal challenges. However, there remains a lack of academic knowledge on how policy instruments may help regional policymakers in implementing their more directional and transformative R&I strategies. Bridging this knowledge gap is essential for responding to various competitive calls to fund regional actions and drive regional transformations (Morisson & Gong, 2023).
Keywords: challenge-driven policies, European funding instruments, research and innovation policies, transformative changes, regional transformation, societal challenges