Ireland’s Smart Specialisation Strategic Goals and Deliverables

High- Level Strategic Goal 1	Our new S3 for Ireland will link national and regional enterprise and innovation policy, connecting the statutory RSESs, Regional Enterprise Plans, Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy and other national policies to bring greater policy coherence at multiple levels of governance.	This will be achieved through: • Convening a national S3 national implementation group to bring together regional and national innovation policy makers; • Continuing to focus on identifying linkages and exploiting synergies between relevant national and regional strategies; and • Providing input, informed by smart specialisation insights, into the development of new strategies and policies over the lifecycle of S3.
High- Level Strategic Goal 2	Smart Specialisation will support the adoption of the European Regional Development Fund in Ireland by supporting policy objective 1 ‘A Smarter Europe’.	This will be achieved through: • Approval of Ireland’s S3 by the European Commission.
High- Level Strategic Goal 3	Smart Specialisation will improve research and innovation capacity in Ireland’s regions.	This will be achieved through: • Increasing the intensity of Business R&D that takes place across all regions, with a particular focus on underperforming regions, through delivering new and enhanced agency interventions with a particular focus on strengthening industry-academic collaborations across Ireland.
High- Level Strategic Goal 4	Smart Specialisation will encourage more regionally dispersed RD&I, strengthen the enterprise base and identify emerging areas of opportunity.	This will be achieved through: • Leveraging and building on the analysis of Irish regions’ strengths and emerging areas of opportunity undertaken as part of the development of Ireland’s S3; • Addressing gaps in existing regional innovation infrastructures and systems through new funding, by supporting projects aligned with the nine REPs to 2024; and • Seeking out opportunities to enable inter-regional collaboration through the REP Implementation structures.
High- Level Strategic Goal 5	Smart Specialisation will increase the regional uptake of new advanced technologies to increase the reach of the twin green and digital transformations throughout Irish enterprise.	This will be achieved through: • Enhanced supports prioritising knowledge transfer and industry- academic collaboration, informed by our smart specialisation analysis and findings.
High- Level Strategic Goal 6	Smart Specialisation will drive the development of skills needed for enhancing innovation activity across the economy.	This will be achieved through: • New and enhanced supports based on creating the necessary skills for needs-led innovation, informed by our S3 analysis and findings.
High- Level Strategic Goal 7	Smart Specialisation will encourage the maximising of sectoral strengths through clustering and the scaling of Ireland’s existing areas of research excellence.	This will be achieved through: • Supporting the development of a new National Clustering policy framework through the identification of regional and national sectoral strengths, capabilities and opportunities; and • Supporting the scaling of Ireland’s existing network of national R&D facilities and clusters by establishing a coherent national framework for S3, and by setting out opportunities that exist within Ireland’s regions.
High- Level Strategic Goal 8	Smart Specialisation will lead to a greater visibility and coherence of the innovation system in Ireland’s regions both nationally and in Europe.		This will be achieved through:
			• The establishment of S3 monitoring of implementation procedure and
			governance at local, regional and national level;
			• The incorporation of S3 goals, approach and priorities into Impact
			2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy;
			• Ongoing engagement with S3 in Ireland by the European
			Commission.