In an opinion drafted by Mikel Irujo (ES/EA),
Director-General for External Action of the
Government of Navarre, the European Committee of
the Regions calls on the European Commission to
further develop its Regional Innovation Scoreboard
for the next edition in 2021. The CoR believes that
the Regional Innovation Scoreboard should become a
tool that helps EU regions to develop their
innovation ecosystems and implement on the ground
EU's political agenda, including the Green Deal.
The European Commission publishes the
Regional Innovation Scoreboard
(RIS) every two years. It helps regions assess the
relative strengths and weaknesses of their research and
innovation ecosystems and can have a political impact
at national and regional level. However, the CoR
believes that the RIS indicators should be better
linked to other monitoring tools and related EU
policies and strategies to better align the RIS 2021
with the new priorities of the post-2020 programming
period.
"The Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2021 should also
address the issue of building regional resilience
through innovation, in the light of the Covid-19
pandemic. Likewise, it would be useful to assess the
vulnerability of regional smart specialisation
strategies in times of crisis", rapporteur Mikel Irujo points out.
The most recent edition of the Regional Innovation
Scoreboard in 2019 placed
Helsinki-Uusimaa on top
, followed by other Scandinavian capital regions. On
the other hand, many regions in Southern and Eastern
Europe, including in Spain, achieved below average
results.
Mikel Irujo's
opinion
will be adopted at the
CoR plenary session
this week during the
European Week of Regions and Cities
. It suggests carrying out thorough analysis to assess
whether the current RIS indicators are suitable for
measuring innovation or if new indicators need to be
incorporated, for instance those linked to
digitalisation or gender. Meanwhile, where appropriate,
other indicators could be discarded or weighted less.
The Commission should also address the issue of missing
data by developing new tools to gather reliable
information from all regions, as well as take better
into account the heterogeneity of European regions and
differences in the criteria applied by the regional and
national statistics offices.
To tackle the innovation divide, the opinion suggests
broadening the concept of smart specialisation and
increasing the use of RIS in benchmarking and
benchlearning regional innovation policies. It also
asks the Commission to investigate the link between
funding under the Structural Funds and the innovation
potential in European regions.
The first
Annual Regional and Local Barometer
, which was published on Monday, expresses concerns on
the fragilising impact of brain drain on some regional
innovation ecosystems. It highlights the need to
prioritise innovation and transformation investment in
Member States and regions according to their
competitive strengths, thus putting smart
specialisation at the heart of a comprehensive European
recovery plan from the Covid-19 crisis.
Contact:
Lauri Ouvinen
Tel. +32 473536887
lauri.ouvinen@cor.europa.eu