Website: https://www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/SMARTwatch/SMART-watch.html

In Central Europe regional innovation strategies (RIS) and the real needs of end users for smart specialisation are too often not well aligned. As each region gathers relevant data in different structures, the SMART_watch project will develop a common methodology and benchmarking tools to improve the situation. More concretely, the project will develop a model for regional branch observatories equipped with a set of monitoring and benchmarking tools, available to all RIS stakeholders and intelligent markets’ actors.

As the project will coincide with the mid-term evaluation of RIS, partners will elaborate policy recommendations for EU institutions, based on international pilot projects and research results. A newly created network of Regional Branch Observatories will enable national and EU authorities to monitor Smart specialisations implementation across the EU. Technology areas that are prioritised in SmartS in partner regions cover health, life science, ICT, future services, sustainable production technics and Industry 4.0.