In 2019, there were two analytical studies prepared within the Priority Area 7 – Knowledge Society of the Danube Region Strategy:
- Evaluation of the knowledge society in the Danube region (2010 – 2018)
- Governance, financing, monitoring and evaluation of Smart Specialization
The aim of the first study is to assess the current state and progress in the area of knowledge society in the Danube region countries, as well as to make recommendations for improving the situation in the region.
The study contains four basic parts:
- Analytical evaluation of the knowledge society
- Fulfilment of Objectives from 2016
- Evaluation of the Best Practice to Date and a SWOT Analysis of PA7
- Recommendation to improve the current state
Regarding the Governance, financing, monitoring and evaluation of Smart Specialization – Analysis and guidelines from EU Danube region countries, the scope of this study is to provide guidance for non-EU countries of the Danube Region regarding governance, financing, monitoring and evaluation of S3.
The report builds knowledge, provides examples and practical details from the selected EU Danube region countries: Slovenia, South Moravian region (Czech Republic) and Lower Austria (Republic of Austria). The reason behind such selection of example regions was to have a combination of different cases. In particular, to analyze both – a national level and regional level S3. Also, the differences in the existing national (or regional) innovation systems, dependence on ESIF and most importantly – in the performance (based on European innovation scoreboard) of the innovation systems is covered and reflected by such selection, combining the cases from strong and moderated innovators.
