More specifically, the service Platform developed is based on two components:
• The Platform Core, which represents the technical base designed to make heterogeneous components cohabit and work together with a services’ oriented architecture. The Platform leverages cloud computing as well as Web and social media technologies, with emphasis on innovative on-line mechanisms.
• The Toolbox of Apps and Roadmaps, which is a set of coherent software services enabling functionalities of custom-built applications in the 6 domains of RIS3 design (Analysis of Regional and National Context, Governance, Vision, Priorities’ identification, Definition of Policy mix, Monitoring and Evaluation). The toolbox is comprised by new and existing online tools for which there is a growing acceptance and popularity in other fields and disciplines.
Τhe online platform and the services have been tested in real world environments, in four different pilot areas (Scotland, Central Region of Macedonia, Galicia and Northern Netherlands), with the cooperation of the regional organisations involved in the RIS3 strategy. The pilots reflected different institutional settings and requirements and therefore, highlight different challenges in the use of RIS3 methodology and tools. They aimed to assess the platform, the toolbox and the mechanism and provide feedback for their improvement through a user-driven innovation cycle.
To this end, Online S3 aimed to establish open innovation communities and enable the rise of new forms of social innovation for the contribution of regional stakeholders to both the design (online interviews, regional workshops for defining the specifications for the tools and services) and the testing of these services (feedback after testing and recommendations for further improvements).
With this project we aimed to close the gap that currently exists in the EU support for RIS3 by offering a complete set of online services with respect to the methodology EU regions are required to follow. These knowledge-based services are complementary to the RIS3 platform and are offered free of charge to all European regions. In this respect, the project has examined different methods to mainstream the services across Europe and sustain their development.
Finally, it is worth stressing the value of the "ONLINE S3 White Paper - INTELLIGENCE AND CO-CREATION IN SMART SPECIALISATION STRATEGIES - Towards the next stage of RIS3", where the core building blocks of RIS3 are presented, as they appear in EU documents and related literature. This white paper also discusses weaknesses of the current period and what can be done better in the near future. At the same time, it looks into critical dimensions for the next stage of RIS3, focusing on how strategies can be improved by datasets and software, enabling the implementation of complex methods; thus, facilitating collective intelligence and co-creation of solutions, which both are able to usher a transition from the triple to quadruple helix model of collaboration.
