%0 Journal Article
%T The Ten Million Euro Question: How Do Innovation Intermediaries Support Smart Specialization?
%A Vidmar
%A Matjaz
%J -
%D 2019
%R 10.15179/ces.21.2.2
%X Sa£¿etak Smart Specialization Strategy (S3) has become a dominant regional economic development field with significant policy traction, in particular within the European Union. However, questions are being raised about its operationalization and a gap has been identified with respect to the role of innovation intermediaries¡¯ interventions in support of the developing regional-sectoral innovation systems. In particular, reasons for diverging policy approaches of ¡°niche specialization¡± versus ¡°regional advantage¡± in comparable situations should be examined to illuminate the contextual factors impacting the interpretation of the intermediaries¡¯ mandates. In this paper, the cases of two leading investments in innovation intermediation in the emerging New Space sector are analyzed (Space-SI and Higgs Centre for Innovation) in two EU NUTS level 1 regions (Slovenia and Scotland), which were previously peripheral players in this technological domain. In particular, using a novel innovation intermediation interventions¡¯ classification, this paper identifies the difference between research and development (R&D) and business development (BD) support foci in the two locales, noting some of the contextual factors associated with them and arguing for the long-term balancing of the two approaches
%K smart specialization
%K innovation intermediaries
%K innovation policy
%K innovation networks
%K New Space industry
%U https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=332987