The contribution of MAPS-LED project in the current debate concerns the explanation of how territorial strategies can be part of “regional innovation strategies for S3”.
The project argues that the inclusion of the spatial dimension in the entrepreneurial discovery process is an important factor to diffuse the clustering phase because allows at highlighting: 1) Economic agglomerations where innovation may occur, 2) The concentration of resources, critical mass (physical, social, financial) for knowledge convergence.
The expected impact lies in enhancing knowledge sharing process in building a smart platform (open innovation model) supporting knowledge dynamics for the creation of cluster initiatives and cluster organisations through urban regeneration mechanisms. Platform called my.STARTup explores the Living Lab as a tool finalized to contextualize an integrated approach to reinforce the role of the city in the creation of knowledge dynamics.
The direction of new explorations comes from a conceptual model based on an evolutionary perspective in recognizing that the dynamic process, thanks to innovation and knowledge, defines different equilibrium paths that may be rather explained by the territorial response. The ongoing debate over cohesion policy for post 2020 recalls for a more awareness of the regions’ role in the European integration process towards a tangible effect on citizens' quality of life in harnessing globalization and industrial change, embracing innovation and digitalization, managing migration in the long run and fighting climate change. The inclination to upgrade financial exposures of regions, towards making of suitable context conditions, is seen as a need empowering them to handle the difficulties presented by globalization. It is widely recognized that, so far, the economic resources plowed into showed little results in catch up the change towards territorial cohesion. It is advocated a more harmonization in policy design process. Even though, for the post 2020 scenario, the coordination and harmonization process is sharpened among the ESI Funds and other EU instruments, these constitute only small fraction of interregional transfers, and in their entirety as an impact on economic growth and development remain one of the many variables. Further suggestions lay towards a kind of harmonisation process in supporting the discovery of regional potentials under both a spatial and a life cycle lens in boosting S3-harmonised policies.
