10 June 2016
Kevin Morgan, senior associate researcher at Orkestra, professor at Cardiff University and European Commission advisor, has participated in the event “Smart specialisation, an innovative strategy for the Basque Country” in which Basque society was informed with regard to the progress achieved in the deployment de RIS3 Smart Specialisation Strategy included in the Euskadi 2020 Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation
Kevin has considerable experience in the analysis of regional innovation systems and strategies. His contribution is based upon a report on 'Implementing RIS3: The Case of the Basque Country', prepared in collaboration with Mari José Aranguren and James Wilson, Orkestra researchers. This report highlights the fact that the Basque Country has taken advantage of the need to design its RIS3 in order to review and adapt both its system, and its regional innovation strategy. Moreover, it s a pioneering region in terms of progressing from design to implementation of the strategy.
Kevin presented his external evaluation of the RIS3 strategy in the Basque Country, “one of the most rigorous we have seen in the European Union”, he observed after emphasising that “the opportunities afforded by RIS3 are being exploited“. He underlined the fact that “the distributed leadership of the Basque RIS3 means that the government plays a crucial role in establishing the ground rules to facilitate the creation of spaces, where other actors exercise generosity and capacity in assuming leadership in their areas of interest and experience”. “The Basque RIS 3 is a living plan open to constructive criticism, learning and novelty, via the creation of a conseil des sages and external evaluation”, he added.
The event was organised by Innobasque and involved the participation of, in addition to the Lehendakari; Arantxa Tapia, the Basque Government minister for Economic Development and Competitiveness; Octavi Quintana Trias, director of the European Commission DG of Research and Innovation; Pedro Miguel Echenique, professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the UPV/EHU; José Esmoris, R+D+I director of CIE Automotive and Alberto García Erauzkin, president of Innobasque.
