Multilevel governance of innovation strategies: Reflections on an inter-regional learning process

At the end of last year, the Interreg Cohes3ion Project came to an end after almost four years of exploring how to integrate a multilevel dimension within the Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) of eight European regions. As discussed in a previous post, multilevel governance is an essential feature of any strategic approach to innovation because of the inevitable interactions between decisions made and actions taken by actors at different territorial scales. Moreover, at a time when local experimentation is particularly important for the process of finding solutions to large societal challenges, such as green transition, a more effective multilevel articulation of innovation policy can play an important role in accelerating and optimising such processes.

At Cohes3ion’s final event in Bilbao on December 15th 2022, Miren Larrea gave a keynote talk where she reflected on lessons learnt around multilevel governance and territorial cohesion. She stressed the urgency of working on multilevel governance in the context of the climate crisis, and the corresponding need to do so in practice, not only in discourse. She also pointed out that multilevel governance should: (i) adopt a systemic perspective that connects different levels, actors and policies; (ii) be both faster and more responsive to citizen’s needs, overcoming the trade-offs between efficiency and democratization; and (iii) adopt a long-term vision, in a way that is open to emerging and hybrid forms of governance.

The project itself has experimented with how to improve the practice of multilevel governance within innovation strategies that are typically designed at only one territorial level (usually the regional level, sometimes the national level). At the closing event representatives from the eight regions shared some of their learnings with the experience of putting into practice regional action plans to enhance specific aspects of multilevel governance in the context of their S3. Here we underline three common relevant issues for making multilevel governance work in practice:

1. Awareness building around the meaning of S3: At the beginning of the project, several partner regions underlined need to raise awareness about S3 among a wider range of territorial actors, many of whom are unfamiliar with these strategies. While at first sight this might not appear to be such a relevant issue, the discussion at the end of the Project highlighted that for several regions, such as Ruhr in Germany or Stockholm in Sweden, it has proved a key step in beginning to integrate a territorial perspective into S3. Active attempts to increase the awareness of both local and regional stakeholders around the S3 concept have led to discussions around strengths and weaknesses, and around how to work on them from different perspectives into the future.

2. Building an evidence base: The process of experimenting with multilevel governance in several regions has brought to light the importance of having sophisticated evidence related to S3, in particular about the specific economic strengths and other capabilities present at different territorial levels. In the case of Southern Ireland, for example, adopting an evidence-based approach was key to facilitating dialogue between regional actors and the national government to ensure that the national strategy contains a meaningful regional dimension. Meanwhile in Bizkaia the development of a sub-regional observatory with data disaggregated at the local level has enabled the development of sophisticated multilevel strategic intelligence is facilitating the connection between innovation strategies at different territorial levels. For several other regions evidence has also been shown to be key for developing credible and shared monitoring and evaluation of S3.

3. Building and working on relationships: A perhaps obvious but nonetheless critical element evidenced in all the regions has been the process of working on institutional (and indeed personal) relationships. The establishment of appropriate dialogue spaces that bridge across actors at different territorial levels is central to integrating a multilevel perspective into S3. In some of the partner regions it has been necessary to establish relationships that simply didn’t exist, while in other regions it was a case of working to strengthen existing relationships. This included relationships with national governments to generate awareness of the relevance of including a regional dimension to their innovation strategies, relationships between different stakeholders to generate a common vision around the strategy, and relationships with local actors to facilitate their involvement in the working groups of regional-level strategies.

Overall, this inter-regional learning process has taught us that sub-regional governments have strategic roles to play both in grounding innovation strategies developed at the regional and/or national levels within specific local contexts and in shaping the evolution of those strategies from the bottom-up. It has made us reflect on the relevance of what might be termed ‘meta-governing’ regional innovation strategies, that is developing multiple actions to articulate a more collaborative governance processes across territorial levels that moves away from command and control. These lessons are particularly relevant in the face of next generation transformative innovation strategies, which are increasingly acknowledged to depend on a multilevel approach that is fully grounded in the actions and experiments of local actors who are close to the everyday impacts of and solutions to our most pressing societal challenges.