The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has published a report on Smart Specialisation, offering a descriptive analysis based mainly on public information rather than a traditional audit.

According to the report, it remains difficult to determine whether Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) are actually achieving their objectives, even though these strategies were launched fifteen years ago. The report identifies three main challenges that still persist:

• Ensuring the identification and financing of meaningful priorities,
  
  
• Promoting tangible cooperation among EU regions,
  
  
• Assessing whether Smart Specialisation is truly fulfilling its intended purpose.
  

Overall, the auditors note that the Smart Specialisation process currently lacks effective alignment with other EU policies, such as industrial policy objectives. This means that regional priorities may not always be consistent with broader EU priorities. The fact that the European Commission does not play an active role in identifying or assessing these priorities makes it harder to ensure that regional priorities and EU-level innovation goals are implemented in a coordinated manner.

The report also points to a lack of consistency in how regions define their priorities — some identify only a few, while others list many, sometimes very broad ones — which may undermine the very purpose of prioritisation. In this regard, the S3 CoP Observatory is highlighted as a useful tool to help identify priorities and address existing gaps.

Many regions still fail to take full advantage of interregional cooperation as a means to enhance the success of Smart Specialisation strategies. Such cooperation allows regions to benefit from each other’s experiences and gain access to new resources, skills, and knowledge. During the 2014–2020 period, interregional collaboration remained peripheral to Smart Specialisation, and cross-border initiatives were rarely integrated into programmes and strategies. Although interregional cooperation has been prioritised for 2021–2027, participation levels remain low.

From the outset, monitoring the success of Smart Specialisation has been challenging, both at the regional and EU level. The policy has not undergone a comprehensive evaluation since its introduction in 2014, making it difficult to assess whether it is truly helping regions to specialise intelligently and strategically. In particular, it is unclear whether the forthcoming evaluation of the ERDF 2014–2020 — which has not yet been published — will include an assessment of progress in Smart Specialisation.

In summary, there is still no clear answer as to whether this approach is meeting its objectives or whether it has instead become merely a formal requirement for accessing EU funds.

Report:https://www.eca.europa.eu/ECAPublications/RV-2025-05/RV-2025-05_EN.pdf