Examining the role of Global Value Chains in the context of smart specialisation strategies (S3)

摘要

This paper examines the EU's policy of Smart Specialisation in the context of Global Value Chains. Technology upgrading is highly dependent on whether countries and regions use global value chains and international R&D networks as levers, linkages and mechanisms of learning. The key challenge for S3 which is still very much unexplored is how can the local production stage of GVC become a building block of regional innovation strategy? There are policy views which argue that GVCs are key to technology upgrading. Linking is everything and there are suggestions that countries or regions should link up only when they are able to benefit i.e. they need first build endogenous technological capability and only then link up. In the past a dominant feature of earlier regional and national research strategies has been an excessive inward orientation or domestic led modernization but starting with S3, there is a requirement to provide evidence that each S3 strategy is sufficiently outward looking. While outward looking can mean inward oriented SSS which has taken into account the global context, within the EU context it also means taking account of what other regions are doing and where complementarities arise, engaging with those other regions. On the other hand, there are limits of only GVC led upgrading. This paper explores how to transationalize S3 and offers insight into the key elements that need to be incorporated into a policy tool box that can help policy makers achieve such an objective.