Editorial

The European Union has aligned its policy to the pursuit of one main goal: to make innovation a priority for all regions. For this reason, this mandate focuses on strategic and innovative projects, catalysing competitiveness and creating added value. The principal aim is to make society progressively fairer, more cohesive and happier by promoting its knowledge base.

In this context, the RIS3 strategy (Research and Innovation Smart Specialisation Strategy) has been designed to assist regions in implementing their own smart specialisation strategies and boosting the sectors of economic specialisation that encourage competitiveness and internationalisation across the European regions.

What role does the university play in this smart specialisation strategy? In this edition the article “Regional policy, RIS3 and universities” invites you to think about the role of the university in this strategy. The interview with Dr. Castellanos Maduell, General Secretary of the Department of the Vice Presidency and of Economy and Finance of the Catalan Government, shows the importance of the RIS3CAT strategy for Catalonia and gives greater insight into its instruments and monitoring systems. Also, Jordi Cartanyà Solé, executive director of Demola Southern Catalonia discusses Demola Global as a collective intelligence tool that promotes talent and collaboration among agents to develop open innovation strategies. In the good practices section, we present the Italian region of Trento, which has become a good example of governance and smart specialisation. Finally, the company Biosfer Teslab, a spin-off of the URV resulting from university research, is presented as an innovative success story in the biotechnology sector.

What is your vision of the future after reading this edition? We invite you to participate with your comments and opinions to make more knowledge-based society.

Francesc Xavier Grau Vidal

Director of the Chair for University and Knowledge Region URV