S3P T&BD
The Steering Committee meeting for Thematic Smart Specialisation Partnerships (TSSPs), celebrated on 17 June, as part of the parallel events of the S3 Conference, provided an opportunity to come together with EU policymakers and the S3 CoP Secretariat. The meeting enabled partnerships to share experiences, discuss policy updates, and explore opportunities for enhanced interregional collaboration.
Dedicated towards the S3 Thematic Platforms on Agri-food, Energy, Industrial Modernisation and Sustainable Blue Economy, and the TSSPs that operate thereunder, the meeting was focused on the lessons learnt and key insights related to services carried out in support of the partnership activities, featuring also networking opportunities and sharing of best practices.
S3 CoP experts opened the meeting by presenting key insights gained through their service delivery to partnerships. They emphasized four critical success factors for developing a robust TSSP: a clear mission and vision, committed partners, regular communication, and strong connections between regional ecosystems.
Specific reflections were also shared for each Service Delivery provided by the S3 CoP Experts. Regarding the third Services taken by Traceability & Big Data, main outputs where:
- The Funding, Finance and Investment Assistance challenge to fund the partnership itself, which includes processes and structural changes to address needs.
- The (Re)Scoping exercise helped better align regional interests with expertise and highlighted the importance of onboarding new members.
- The Demonstration service proved useful in mobilising stakeholders and illustrating the added value of interregional collaboration, though the issue of sustainable funding remains a significant challenge.
The S3 CoP experts reviewed findings from the latest monitoring reports, which covered 33 reports across 42 partnerships. More than 300 projects have been launched — 35 in the last six months — with 16 of them funded under the I3 Instrument. This sparked a lively discussion on whether participation in a TSSP should grant added value during the I3 evaluation process during the later breakout sessions.
The reports also identified key challenges: governance structures remain weak in some partnerships, sustained partner engagement is difficult, and there is often a lack of strategic alignment across regions. Bottlenecks include limited operational capacity, difficulty in accessing funding, and challenges in engaging stakeholders without concrete projects in the pipeline.
Two new TSSPs were officially presented. The Health Resilience partnership, led by Sport Cluster Netherlands, aims to strengthen regional resilience in health through lifestyle, prevention, and personalised care. The Biosolutions partnership, led by Walgrain (Belgium), supports the agroecological transition by promoting alternatives to synthetic pesticides. This new initiative is expected to create synergies with existing partnerships, including Traceability & Big Data.
The dedicated session on the Agri-food Platform gathered inputs from DG AGRI and DG RTD, including updates on upcoming EU strategies such as the Bioeconomy Strategy, the Biotech Act, and the Food 2030 initiative. An interactive session followed, fostering Agrifood partnerships exchange, mutual knowledge and key challenges.
During the afternoon, two breakout discussions on three different panels allowed participants to discuss and share insights on identifying partnership strategies and roadmaps, explore how to activate regions and participants in the TSSPs, and share experiences and challenges in developing a strong project concept.
The meeting concluded with a shared commitment to transform structural insights into collaborative action, reaffirming the TSSPs as key instruments to advance Europe's innovation and cohesion goals.