Evidence-informed decision-making in Smart Specialisation Strategies: a patent-based approach for discovering regional technological capabilities

Discovering regional technological capabilities is key to underpinning the place-based and evidence-driven logic of Smart Specialisation. However, a comprehensive methodological approach for operationalizing the mapping, assessment and benchmarking of regional technological knowledge is urgently required. To address this need, we design and test a patent-based methodology that helps to profile technological domains in European Union regions, detects technological competitive advantages and opportunities for knowledge recombination, assesses selected S3 priorities against regional innovation performance measures, and conducts benchmarking activities. This study lays the foundation for tailoring a digital application to complement the suite of online services for S3 development currently available.