Regional Studies Call for Papers: Towards a Technology-enabled Approach to Smart Specialisation Development

Effective RIS3 design and implementation is an outcome of well-coordinated interactions between multi-stakeholder collaboration and decision making, big data collection methods, advanced computational capacities, and large-scale visual data exploration. A growing body of literature suggests technological solutions are key instruments in framing these complex interactions and overcoming the methodological gaps currently undermining the evidence-based, highly collaborative, and place-sensitive nature of RIS3 development. However, in addition to calling for a technology-enabled approach to RIS3 policy-making, this literature also makes it clear that significant research efforts are still necessary to assemble it.

Despite the many online applications currently available to support RIS3 development and the significant investment of the European Commission in such technologies, recent studies demonstrates that the use of ICT solutions in practice remains very limited. In addition, academic research struggles to provide a clear understanding of: (1) how the multitude of stakeholders involved in RIS3 design and implementation should act in order to take advantage of existing ICT applications and systems; (2) whether these digital solutions meet the requirements of the sector; and (3) if there is need for new tailored online functionalities.

In light of this knowledge gap, the ambition of this Special Issue is to provide a critical insight into how the technology-enabled approach to RIS3 development that the European Commission has championed over the past decade can be assembled, by triggering the construction of a collective knowledge platform able to inform regional and national governments on how to foster RIS3 as a set of practical applications. 

Authors interested in responding to this Call for Papers are encouraged to focus attention on the following research questions. The list is not meant to be exhaustive, but merely indicative of some of the key questions this Special Issue proposes to focus attention on:

• To what extent can a technological-enabled approach to RIS3 overcome the current design and implementation gaps current applications leave behind and strengthen the emerging synergy between ICT and Smart Specialisation?
• To what extent can ICT solutions enhance knowledge creation and organizational learning in the framework of Smart Specialisation?
• What are the main challenges that platform developers experience when attempting to introduce ICT solutions into RIS3 development?
• What are the barriers limiting the deployment of ICT tools in RIS3 development?
• How can big data analytics and real-time information processing support the knowledge discovery process that RIS3 champions?
• How can ICT solutions help organize RIS3 in the multi-stakeholder and collaborative framework of a quadruple-helix model?
• What is the impact of existing ICT solutions and how do such applications currently respond to the needs of policy makers in terms of the advice they offer?
• How can technology-enabled solutions facilitate the evaluation and monitoring of Smart Specialisation as a strategy for sustaining a true process of economic renewal?

Please send your extended abstract (max. 500 words) to the guest editors by 31^st October 2019.

Notification about further consideration of contributions (subject to the journal’s usual peer-review process) will be given by 30^th November 2019. Full papers will be expected by 31^st March 2020. Please submit your proposal to: L.Mora@napier.ac.uk.

Submissions will be subject to the journal’s normal peer review process. Details of Regional Studies’ publication process, evaluation criteria and style are available on the Journal’s Instructions for Authors page.