Skills for Smart Specialisation

This research attempts to quantify the extent to which the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) – as one of the most significant sources of public investment for research and innovation – and European Social Funds (ESF) – as Europe's main instrument investing in human capital – supported the provision of high-quality education and training relevant to the needs of territories and their smart specialisation (S3) domains in the 2014 to 2020 programming period. Smart Specialisation (S3) is an innovation policy concept that aims to boost regional enterprise innovation, contributing to growth and prosperity by helping and enabling regions to focus on their strengths.

Through the application of a keyword search approach to a dataset on projects co-financed by the ERDF, the research identified that roughly 8 percent of projects funded concerned skills-related activities relevant to S3, representing 24.0 billion € (11 percent) of the ERDF investment covered in the sample. Moreover, around 9 percent of all analysed ERDF beneficiaries were identified as Higher Education Institutes (HEIs), which led 14 percent (6,130 projects) of all ERDF projects identified as relevant for skills for S3. The share of skills for S3 funding at national level varied from 48 to 2 percent under ERDF.

Utilising an optimised keyword search approach to data on a sample of projects under the ESF, the research identified that roughly 10 percent of projects funded concerned skills-related activities relevant to S3, accounting for 14.9 billion € (17 percent) of ESF investment. Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) led 4 percent (2,580 projects) of all S3 skills ESF projects. The share of skills for S3 funding at national level varied between 53 and 2 percent, reflecting factors such as varying eligibility and funding strategies, levels of economic development and educational attainment, demographic, economic and labour market factors as well as the diversity of education systems and HEIs across the EU.

The results enable a better understanding of the size of investments in skills for territorial development from different funding sources, and the variables that reflect territorial differences, for example the positive territorial correlation between high investments in S3 skills and thriving innovation eco-systems. The ex-post analysis can inform the alignment of funding in support of skills for S3 and productivity ex-ante across different funds and will be supported by a similar analysis on initial allocations and programming priorities for the 2021 to 2027 programming period, as well as for investments from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).