Between institutions and agency : How tensions shape the trajectory of governance

2020

The Europe 2020 strategy promoted the concept of smart specialization as the future for regional development strategies in Europe. The aim was to improve governance practices within European countries on sub-national levels. Nevertheless, not all regions in the European Union produced smart-specialization strategies within the year 2020. The failure to produce a strategy does not mean that actions were not taken. It is instead that actions were taken within different contexts that greatly affected how the implementation process played out. As such, smart specialization has presented opportunities to study the meaning of place. How the policy concept has been translated into action through e…