The document discusses the economic, social, and geopolitical crises facing Europe in the 21st century and how innovation can help address these challenges. It outlines Europe's policy responses, including strengthening core values, socioeconomic development, and large financial commitments. The document emphasizes activating and reconfiguring regional innovation ecosystems using a Triple Helix approach and smart specialization strategies to identify local competitive advantages. It argues that innovation agents must be stimulated and that knowledge institutions and businesses have untapped potential if properly supported through this process.

1. A European Perspective on Global Crisis:
Mapping the Potential of the Triple Helix
Players
Dr Dimitri CORPAKIS
Former European Commission official (Head of Unit),
XIV International Triple Helix Conference
Triple Helix Models of Innovation:
Addressing Ecosystem Challenges in the Era of Crises
Heidelberg, 25-27/9/2016

2. The 21st Century entered in a crisis mode
What we witness:
• economic crises: low investment, de-industrialisation, erosion
of middle-class, growing inequalities, difficulties of economic
and monetary union in the Eurozone
• social crises: migration and integration, demographics, ageing
society, inter generation links, health care , security
• geopolitical crises: failing states, depleting resources, erosion
of human rights and democracy and the rule of law, violence
and radicalisation
2

3. What Europe did (but probably you didn’t notice):
• Work to protect core values of democracy, the rule of law, fundamental
rights (social charter, improved Treaty of the European Union);
• Engage more on socio-economic development : social market economy,
cohesion (legislation on workers’ participation and protection,
Globalisation Fund); fair competition, development of a level playing field,
entrepreneurship, SMEs, innovation;
• Deploy big means for big ambitions: the Multi-annual Financial
Framework and its main components ( renewed European Structural and
Investment Funds (ESIF), a new and ambitious research and innovation
framework programme (Horizon 2020), a new European Fund for
Strategic Investment (Juncker Package), new financial instruments and
platforms to stimulate investment) 3

4. The Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020:
•Key challenge: stabilise the financial and economic system while
taking measures to create economic opportunities
1. Smart & inclusive growth* (€451 billion)
2. Sustainable growth, natural resources (€373 billion)
3. Security and citizenship (€16 billion)
4. Global Europe (€58 billion)
5. Administration (€61.6 billion)
(figures are given in constant prices)
Education,
Youth, Sport
Connecting
Europe*
Cohesion
Competitive
Business
SMEs
HORIZON
2020*
TOTAL
€960 billion
4

5. Yet there is hope despite the crisi(e)s:
• Innovation cannot act by magic but may
solve some of our problems…So an idea is
to address complexity through the power of
innovation ecosystems
• However Innovation ecosystems feel the
impact of the crisis too
5

6. How:
• Reconfiguring and activating the European innovation
ecosystem through a Triple Helix approach seems fundamental
for addressing the different levels of the crisis;
• acting on the core components of the ecosystem: the firm, the
knowledge institution (wide range) and the government;
developing links, sensors and actuators inside their structures
(firms, institutions, authorities):
• rethinking and repositioning structures and processes while
creating the conditions for reconfiguring capabilities 6

7. Who:
• Innovation ecosystems are living structures; they flourish out
of diversity, openness experimentation and above all knowledge.
Today’s innovation ecosystems are necessarily knowledge
based
• The agents of change play a crucial role: agents of change are
found at every level (as well as blocking factors). Activating and
reconfiguring innovation ecosystems, involves interacting,
stimulating and coaching the change agents in every
organisation. This process is necessarily bottom-up. It is also
location-driven. 7

8. Location driven ?
Location driven means that local ecosystems will
have to identify through a bottom-up iterative and
managed process their comparative / competitive
advantage; that is the drivers of their future
development and growth. This process is now
known in Europe as Smart Specialisation
8

9. A backgrounder on Smart
Specialisation (I)
• The concept of smart specialisation traces its origins back to the
debate on the transatlantic productivity gap. Initially conceived by
Dominique Foray and Bart van Ark, it was later given additional
impetus by co-authors Paul David, Bronwyn Hall and by other
members of the “Knowledge for Growth” expert group (2009).
• Transatlantic differences in R&D intensity used to explain
differences in growth terms between USA and Europe reflected also
on differences in the way new technologies diffuse in the
broader economy, with a special emphasis on ICT. That was
thought to explain largely the productivity differences
observed. 9

10. A backgrounder on Smart
Specialisation (II)
• Concept of smart specialisation central to economic development
and growth policy
• A central pillar of the Europe 2020 Strategy (see also Flagship Initiative
Innovation Union [COM(2010)546] and the EU Budget Review [COM(2010)700]
• A central element in the development of a reformed European
Cohesion Policy, which is based on the principles of ‘smart’,
‘green’, and ‘inclusive growth’.
• Regions / MS are required to identify the activities, sectors,
technological domains, where they would seem to have competitive
advantage, and then focus their regional development policies so as
to promote innovation, based in these fields. This development
would be rooted on knowledge assets 10

11. D.Foray, P.A. David and B.Hall : Smart Specialisation:
the Concept
Knowledge for
Growth expert
group for the EC
11

12. A simple idea (KfG brief no 9, 2009)
• “It should be understood at the outset that the idea of smart specialisation does not
call for imposing specialisation through some form of top-down industrial policy that
is directed in accord with a pre-conceived “grand plan”. Nor should the search for
smart specialisation involve a foresight exercise, ordered from a consulting firm.
• We are suggesting an entrepreneurial process of discovery that can reveal what a
country or region does best in terms of science and technology. That is, we are
suggesting a learning process to discover the research and innovation domains in
which a region can hope to excel. In this learning process, entrepreneurial actors are
likely to play leading roles in discovering promising areas of future specialisation, not
least because the needed adaptations to local skills, materials, environmental
conditions, and market access conditions are unlikely to be able to draw on codified,
publicly shared knowledge, and instead will entail gathering localized information
and the formation of social capital assets.”
112

13. A smart specialisation strategy
involves..
.. putting in place a process:
 to identify sectors and emerging domains where structural
changes are desirable
 to stimulate (and learn from) the entrepreneurial discovery
processes (EDP)
 to concentrate resources on a few number of activities (emerging
from the EDP)
 to help these activities to grow (specific capabilities and
complementary resources)
 to measure progress
 to re-initiate the process at any time
Courtesy Dominique Foray (2016) (ERSA Lecture 4/3/16)
13

14. Smart Specialisation is not
what you usually think it is
• It is not about pure specialisation – since this involves huge
risks about potential lock-ins
• It is not about selecting and favouring only a few sectors –
but this might be an intermediate stage
• It is rather about identifying the new opportunities that
often emerge at the intersection of existing sectors and
technologies – the target of the "entrepreneurial discovery
process" 14

15. Key points on Smart Specialisation:
• Stimulate innovation through entrepreneurship,
modernisation, adaptation
• Dare to introduce innovative governance solutions
• Think about strategic technological diversification on
areas of relative strength and potential
• Increase diversification – promote new linkages,
synergies and spill-overs
Adapted from Philip McCann (2012)
15

16. RIS3 assessment
16

17. Policy delivery instruments for RIS³
• Green Growth: only sustainable is smart – Eco-innovation & Energy efficiency
• Digital agenda: enabling knowledge flows throughout the territory –connected regions
• Clusters for regional growth: business ecologies that drive innovation
• Innovation-friendly business environments for SMEs: good jobs in internationally
competitive firms
• Social Innovation: new organisational forms to tackle societal challenges
• Stronger focus on financial engineering: not only grants
• Lifelong Learning in research and innovation: support knowledge triangle (KICs) and
university-enterprise cooperation
• Key Enabling Technologies: systemic potential to induce structural change
• Research infrastructure/centres of competence: support to ESFRI and EU wide
diffusion of leading edge R&D results
• Creativity and cultural industries: innovation beyond technology and outside manufacturing
• Public Procurement for market pull: pre-competitive PP to open new innovation friendly
market niches
17

18. Smart specialisation:
Commission assistance
•RIS3 Platform http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/activities/research-
and-innovation/s3platform.cfm
•Established by the Joint Research Centre (IPTS) in Seville
•Facilitator in bringing together the relevant policy support
activities in research, regional, enterprise, innovation, information
society, education and sustainable policies.
•Information and communication on related funding opportunities
under the relevant EU funding programmes.
•Direct feed-back and information to regions, Member States and
its intermediate bodies.
•Provides methodological support, expert advice, training,
information on good practice, etc.
•Mirror Group of International experts
•Outside the Platform: Commission has supported expert
contracts for specific assistance to regions and Member States
18

19. Source: Final ESIF partnership agreements as of December 2015
Soon all open data available at: https://cohesiondata.ec.europa.eu/
ESIF programming 2014-20: State of Play
In billion EUR
• EUR 454 billion of ESIF + EUR 183 billion of national co-financing
• 456 national and regional and 79 INTERREG cooperation programmes
• Concentration on 11 Thematic Objectives
ca €122 billion
ca €234 billion
19
19

20. Entrepreneurial
discovery process
is the core of RIS3
 Reiterative process
 Creative thinking /
combination
 External view needed
 Multiple formats of EDP
depending on:
 RIS3 stage (strategy design vs.
Delivery mechanism design vs.
Project level)
 Theme / value chain specificities
(e.g. pharmaceuticals vs digital
innovations vs manufacturing ….)
Business
manufacturing and
services, primary sectors,
financial sector, creative
industries, social sector,
large firms, SMEs,
young entrepreneurs,
students with business
ideas, cluster and business
organisations, etc.
Research
public and private
research bodies,
universities,
science and technology
parks, NCPs,
Technology transfer
offices, Horizon2020
committee members,
regional ESFRI roadmaps
etc.
Different departments,
if relevant at different
government levels, agencies
e.g. for regional development,
business advice,
public procurement offices,
incubators, etc.
Public
administration
NGOs and citizens’
initiatives related to
societal challenges for
which innovative solutions
would be helpful,
consumers associations,
trade unions,
Talents! etc.
Civil society /
Users
Entrepreneurial in:
- Composition and
- Spirit: (risk-taking, broader
view beyond boundaries …)
20

21. Innovation and its bottlenecks
 Designing and delivering innovation policy in
a context of global uncertainty
 EU policies provide a conceptual and an
implementation framework
 Structural deficiencies across Europe may
prevent these policies to run to their full
potential
211

22. Major issues on planning ahead
• Structural deficiencies in the planning authorities at national and
regional level
• Absorptive capacity - Difficulties of small players in integrating
global innovation value chains
• Difficult or non-existent cooperation between universities and the
business communities
• Spiral of marginalisation and lack of ambition
• Huge gaps in research and innovation investments correlate with
gaps in innovation performance
• Commission response: emphasis on better planning tools and on
institutional networking with no compromise on excellence 222

23. A huge potential
• The potential of knowledge institutions (entrepreneurial
universities and research organisations) is enormous but its
activation and rendering is often a very inefficient process.
• The same applies to businesses and government agencies that
host change agents, not necessarily activated.
• A proper stimulation, management and coaching of this
process based on the identified (but dynamically evolving)
process of smart specialisation is necessary to obtain results.
233

24. Thanks for your
attention
d.corpakis@gmail.com
https://twitter.com/gpstune
https://about.me/dimitri_corpakis