Measuring territorial innovation strengths

One of the most complex steps within Smart Specialisation is to determine genuinely promising areas in an evidence-based manner, with the help of multiple data. This is also the stage where the economies from the EU Enlargement and Neighbourhood Region lacked expertise and required support. Following the progress made by these economies in the previous period, it was possible to conduct a comparison of the methodologies used for mapping the economic, innovation, scientific, and technological potential of countries and regions, as well as reflect on the challenges encountered during the data collection process in the different territories. To achieve this goal, a technical workshop has been organized and preceded by two background documents describing the experiences in the above-mentioned countries, with a focus on collecting and interpreting economic, innovation, and scientific statistical data. Similarly, the workshop aimed to compare and evaluate methodologies used for mapping the economic and innovation potential in the countries. This was followed by a debate on how to deal with new challenges related to sustainability and non-EU territories, such as Latin America and Africa.