Journal of the National Research University Higher School of Economics

Investing more in research, innovation and entrepreneurship is at the heart of Europe 2020 and the only way to achieve smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. Smart specialization emerges as a key element for place-based innovation policies. The paper explains the linkage between knowledge creation, innovation output and enhancing regional and national competitiveness. We present the six major steps that every nation/region should follow to establish a smart specialization strategy based on the basic principles as described in the EU Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialization (RIS3), accompanied by some examples of excellence from the Nordic countries. Special emphasis is paid to issues of applying the Quadruple Helix approach in the context of RIS3. This concept extends the triple helix paradigm by presuming that society is a key actor in innovation processes along with academia, industry, and government. The society is frequently the end user of innovation and thus has a strong influence on the generation of knowledge and technologies via its demand and user function.Our analysis allows us to conclude that a quadruple helix approach is suitable for developing smart specialization strategies despite the greater efforts this entails. There is an urgent need to reconsider measures to keep the momentum generated in the original initiative and demonstrate the value of this exercise. Furthermore, there is a growing need to measure the impact and quantify the value of smart specialization.