1. Peer eXchange & Learning
Entrepreneurial Discovery Process
for Smart Specialisation Strategies (EDP)
Estonia
Magdeburg, 8 March 2018 Laura Arengu

2. Overview of Estonia’s RIS3
National RIS3 strategy (regional=national)
National economy is diversified
R&I:
Most of research is done in universities in Tallinn and Tartu
Researchers mainly evaluated via bibliometric indicators
Estonian scientists successful in securing financing in Horizon projects
1.5% of Estonian companies value universities as cooperation partners
Business investment in R&D is low
6 technology development centres (ICT, biotech)
The Estonian economy remains dominated by SMEs in traditional sectors with limited needs for R&D. Investment is concentrated in a few large companies. Business innovation concentrated in a limited number of high-technology sectors, such as ICT, biotechnology, and financial and telecom services.

3. Overview of Estonia’s RIS3
Governance
Joint responsibility for Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and Ministry of Education and Research
Main governance body: Steering Committee (7 members incl. 4 from public sector, 1 universities, 2 private sector)
Priorities
ICT horizontally
Health Technologies
Enhancement of Resources
In order to make the discussion at the workshop as efficient and useful as possible, it is important to move out of the ‘classical’ presenting mood and head towards a more concrete approach to issues that need to be faced on the ground, while establishing and implementing your strategy. For this reason it is important to define a focus of your presentation, which would act as a ‘red thread’ in your presentation.
Please remember that the more linked to your presentation the questions are, the more relevant feedback you might get. By presenting the questions up front, you allow your peer critical friends to keep them in mind while you give your presentation. The questions should be repeated at the end of the presentation. Questions of a very general character can be made relevant for you specific region only if you give related information in your presentation.

4. EDP for the RIS3 design Challenges and reflections
Science push vs market pull
New structures put in place, but difficult to empower them
Processes discontinued due to institutional changes
Most useful aspects/incentives for involving stakeholders in the EDP
Possibility to have a say in short-listing key problems and best solutions for own area of interest
But difficult to keep interest if reaching solutions takes time or decisions and relationships are politicized
In order to make the discussion at the workshop as efficient and useful as possible, it is important to move out of the ‘classical’ presenting mood and head towards a more concrete approach to issues that need to be faced on the ground, while establishing and implementing your strategy. For this reason it is important to define a focus of your presentation, which would act as a ‘red thread’ in your presentation.
Please remember that the more linked to your presentation the questions are, the more relevant feedback you might get. By presenting the questions up front, you allow your peer critical friends to keep them in mind while you give your presentation. The questions should be repeated at the end of the presentation. Questions of a very general character can be made relevant for you specific region only if you give related information in your presentation.

5. EDP for the RIS3 implementation (1)
Challenges:
Key elements of RIS3 put in place over , then EDP discontinued due to institutional changes
Some decision-makers argue for status quo
„Loss of momentum“ with other stakeholders
Priority areas vague and thus progress difficult to monitor
In order to make the discussion at the workshop as efficient and useful as possible, it is important to move out of the ‘classical’ presenting mood and head towards a more concrete approach to issues that need to be faced on the ground, while establishing and implementing your strategy. For this reason it is important to define a focus of your presentation, which would act as a ‘red thread’ in your presentation.
Please remember that the more linked to your presentation the questions are, the more relevant feedback you might get. By presenting the questions up front, you allow your peer critical friends to keep them in mind while you give your presentation. The questions should be repeated at the end of the presentation. Questions of a very general character can be made relevant for you specific region only if you give related information in your presentation.

6. EDP for the RIS3 implementation (2)
Opportunities:
- Great possibility for „lessons learnt“ from a parallel process of stakeholder engagement (structures and processes of work related to Industrial Policy Green Book, strong overlap with Enhancement of Resources priority area)
- Business-minded stakeholders want to see more prioritisation
In order to make the discussion at the workshop as efficient and useful as possible, it is important to move out of the ‘classical’ presenting mood and head towards a more concrete approach to issues that need to be faced on the ground, while establishing and implementing your strategy. For this reason it is important to define a focus of your presentation, which would act as a ‘red thread’ in your presentation.
Please remember that the more linked to your presentation the questions are, the more relevant feedback you might get. By presenting the questions up front, you allow your peer critical friends to keep them in mind while you give your presentation. The questions should be repeated at the end of the presentation. Questions of a very general character can be made relevant for you specific region only if you give related information in your presentation.

7. Summary & next steps Conclusions + importance of prioritisation
incumbents fear de-prioritisation of their areas
+ reshuffling of people, new opportunities
In order to make the discussion at the workshop as efficient and useful as possible, it is important to move out of the ‘classical’ presenting mood and head towards a more concrete approach to issues that need to be faced on the ground, while establishing and implementing your strategy. For this reason it is important to define a focus of your presentation, which would act as a ‘red thread’ in your presentation.
Please remember that the more linked to your presentation the questions are, the more relevant feedback you might get. By presenting the questions up front, you allow your peer critical friends to keep them in mind while you give your presentation. The questions should be repeated at the end of the presentation. Questions of a very general character can be made relevant for you specific region only if you give related information in your presentation.

8. Question 1: How to balance interest groups?
Why: EDP should cover all relevant stakeholders: how to reach them and how to balance them to achieve objective and fair results?
What has been done: Some have argued that certain interests prevailed in the first phase of Estonia’s RIS3. In making decisions, the votes of a few experts determined much of the result.
What worked:
What did not work:
This slide focuses on your question: try to formulate on this slide your answers to the following questions:
What is your question/issue?
Has something been done by policymakers in your region to address this issue or is it a completely new issue?
If you have done something in this area, what are the things that worked well for you?
If there was anything you have done to address this issue and it did not work, it would be useful for other participants to learn from your experience.

9. Question 2: How to keep EDP continuous?
Why: EDP should by definition be a continuous process. But how to engage the most relevant stakeholders on a continuous basis?
What has been done: In phase 1 engaged stakeholders did not cover the full spectrum of opportunity areas and later stakeholder engagement momentum was lost due to institutional changes
What worked:
What did not work:
This slide focuses on your question: try to formulate on this slide your answers to the following questions:
What is your question/issue?
Has something been done by policymakers in your region to address this issue or is it a completely new issue?
If you have done something in this area, what are the things that worked well for you?
If there was anything you have done to address this issue and it did not work, it would be useful for other participants to learn from your experience.

10. Question 3: Monitoring progress of growth areas
Why: By definition EDP results should feed into changes in list of priority areas. But how to monitor growth of priority areas if most projects and support measures (product/service/technology development etc) take time to influence growth and profitability of companies?
What has been done: In the growth area monitoring reports to be completed in 2018, we aim to evaluate changes in priority area entrepreneurship over the period , when RIS3 related measures hadn’t shown results yet.
What worked:
What did not work:
This slide focuses on your question: try to formulate on this slide your answers to the following questions:
What is your question/issue?
Has something been done by policymakers in your region to address this issue or is it a completely new issue?
If you have done something in this area, what are the things that worked well for you?
If there was anything you have done to address this issue and it did not work, it would be useful for other participants to learn from your experience.