1. Why a big bang is needed?

1.1 The rational

Since 1988, planning and building infrastructures require more and more time due to administrative constraints while the time to develop competitive advantages or engage a transformation process of the regional economy has decreased. If linking infrastructure investments in a 5- to 7-year multi-year programming still makes sense, it is no longer the best framework for supporting intangible investments.

Today, we must also acknowledge that in almost all countries, the types of regional divides and challenges to enhance regional development are becoming less and less uniform.

Regions are indeed made by a patchwork of different areas ranging from dynamic knowledge hubs to innovation desert areas. In many cases, innovative solutions transfer and digital interactions between innovative urban centres and rural villages are weak.

Due to an excessively straightforward approach to a complicated issue, regional authorities are unable to truly tailor their support to the unique requirements of their regional patchwork.

1.2. The diagnosis.

In many countries, regional policies do not achieve a harmonious growth of the territory as the disparities between regions are growing[1]. Those policies have a strong "the winners take it all" effect that favours the development of national or regional capital cities[2]. Lagging regions too often use the resources made available by these policies as windfall effects to finance projects without real correlation with the capacity of the territory or the real needs of local stakeholders. This is made possible by the lack of resources dedicated to ex-ante evaluation and the analysis of its findings.

1.3 The food for thoughts

Four main ideas:

i) Splitting the support to regional development in two parts

ii) Asking the right question to avoid nonsense decisions

iii) Giving authority to an ex-ante evaluation team

iv) Killing overstated goals and ambitions

v) Building an agenda for policymakers- stakeholders dialogue regarding the implementation of a strategy

2. Splitting the support to regional development in two parts

2.1 The core of the new system

It seems time to seriously consider splitting the Structural Funds into two parts. One part would be dedicated to tangible investments while the other would support investments related to regional socio-economic development (R&D+I, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, digitalisation, greening, social & societal innovation and human capital);

A new, more flexible and adaptable regulatory structure would govern the portion committed to investments in socio-economic development. That part will be driven through a vertical integration of the support services. This will replace today's horizontal juxtaposition of policies complemented by pedagogical efforts to seek hypothetical synergies. A 3-year rolling action plan should be the basis of the implementation strategy.

The part that focuses on tangible investments would differentiate between those made to ensure connectivity, urban, rural, and remote development on the one hand, and those made to ensure mobility, energy, environment, education and vocational training, research and innovation, enterprise estates, culture, and others on the other.

2.2 A renewed technical assistance system

There will be an exhaustive set of support put in place. Assistance will be offered in the form that follows:

- mentoring for the first movers looking to involve stakeholders in the co-design of the implementation of a next generation of support services or to test new support services

- advice in needs assessment and in the diffusion of innovative solutions

- coaching for the implementation of financial engineering tools

- peer review of the effectiveness of the delivery processes of support services and of the evaluation system

- capacity building for the management of transregional collaborative projects involving enterprises and organisations involved in applied innovation.

3. Asking the right question to avoid non-sense policy-making

It would be helpful to offer unbiased responses to the following issues as EU officials and stakeholders prepare the next multi-annual programmes:

- Do public policy goals have to be designed in a universal "one size fits it all" approach?

 Is a one-size-fits-all strategy the best way to assist regions in bridging their shortage of assets to bridge the gaps they face in the fields of innovation, creativity, digitalisation, human capital, attractiveness for investors and socio-economic development?

- Does the Cohesion policy administrative model—which includes a multi-annual budget, audit and grants culture, as well as a lot of implementation intermediaries —still represent the best course of action for supporting the entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem as it has to address sudden shifts, complex cross-sector cooperation, and increased investment costs.

- When the speed of change is accelerating, is the call for tenders with set deadlines still the best strategy to encourage high-technology research and innovation?

- Can the EU stakeholders be continuously pushed to catch the next buzz goals without being helped to review why they are not able to overcome most of their persistent problems preventing them from reaching the classic objectives?

- When the amount of financing needed to develop new knowledge or buy cutting-edge technology is greater than what most regions can afford, does fragmentation of support help to produce critical mass?

- Are policymakers making adequate efforts to inspire and help their stakeholders to adopt mature innovations in order to gain a competitive edge?

- Do all decision-makers understand that different support services are needed for the different types of innovation and start-ups?- If in a given region stakeholders lack the capabilities to successfully offer the necessary assistance to help enterprises invest in the least knowledge-intensive type of innovation, how can a region be able to support the most complex kinds of innovation such as the deeptech one?

4. Giving authority to an ex-ante evaluation team

An independent ex-ante evaluation team should receive a mandate to check if there is

a) a clear definition of the goals and that the path to reach them is and will remain under control?

b a good understanding of the evolution of the regional and external environment?

c) a clear focus on how to achieve the objectives: prioritization of the means and concentration of resources on critical areas?

d) any reward foreseen for the civil servants to introduce innovation and to be agile?

e) an implementation plan with detailed steps, clear task assignments and deadlines for measuring the achievements and undertaking interim evaluation?

There are indeed several early indications that an implementation will fail. Therefore, it should be the responsibility of an ex-ante evaluation unit to identify them and then get in touch with regional policymakers and stakeholders to look for alternative ways to get around them. Here a typology of the main early sign of the failure of an implementation plan as it has a sign of death already from the design of the strategy. The table below provides some indications of those signs.

Table 1 A typology of the main early sign of the failure of a strategy implementation plan

5. Killing overstated goals and ambitions

Of course, everyone is in favour of any policy that strengthens the ability of regions to develop an innovation strategy.

The European elites seem to be in a never-ending race to keep up with the innovative and entrepreneurial developments made in California. They act without fully considering why it works there and won't ever work in Europe. This suggests or implies that all regions are capable of building overnight a Californian innovative clone ecosystem. The most significant variations, however, have been apparent for some time.  Examples include:

-a larger amount of private venture capital managed by the many US investors, including business angels

-the greater number of young and serial entrepreneurs

-the region's attractiveness for would-be migrant entrepreneurs

-the entrepreneurship culture

-a smaller initial customer base because there isn't a true EU uniform internal market.

This has the effect of making elected officials across the EU believe that they must demonstrate on paper that they have the resources to be a high-tech world-class hub. Instead, shouldn't they strengthen local innovation-based competitive advantages? For instance, rather than supporting a biotech cluster, a rural area may promote a bioeconomy focusing on innovative approaches to growing and processing medicinal plants.

Additionally, Europe lacks several of the crucial elements and critical mass that make an invention ecosystem particularly effective. This is hidden by the fact that European organizations take pride in using the name of a well-known Californian instrument to identify themselves, despite that they do not offer the original supports that truly make the difference[3]. This is made possible because many policymakers support such cover-up practices by usually seeing EU financing as a free and straightforward money bag. In many cases, EU support is not taken seriously as a means to engage in a process change that is goal-oriented or as a tool to develop strong comparative advantages based on genuine distinctive regional resources.

Last but not least, the EU lacks a robust industrial foundation to apply regionally its knowledge discovery that could result in a strong European supply chain and so contribute to accomplishing the goals of the green and digital agendas. Using such an approach might also be a unique opportunity to "Europeanise" the advantages of the investments made in R&D and innovation.

There is no chance the EU will be able to realize its goal of having 242 innovative regions able to support its competitive aspirations if no one acknowledges that accomplishing this requires a set of clear specific approaches rather than just a few universal ones.

According to the degree of knowledge intensity and investment costs, the matrix that follows provides a typology of innovation forms with a range of 1 to 7. Regions might not always have the appropriate stakeholders to develop specific products, services, or processes across the seven forms, nor do they always provide the required services to foster investment in all those innovation forms.

Table 2  A typology of innovation forms

According to our own overview of the SWOT analysis of a sample of 24 regions located in 13 M.S., (BG, ES, FR, HR, IT, FIN, GR, NL, SE, SK, PL, PT, and RO), it appears that all these regions struggle to deliver the fundamental support services needed to foster innovation. It is quite surprising, in 2023, that so many obvious shortcomings are still acknowledged throughout Europe despite the EU's plea and support, for more than 30 years, investment in regional innovation strategies, ecosystems and clusters. A region's ability to become a real innovative hub is seriously questioned if it experiences three or four of the weaknesses outlined below.

Table 3  A typology of common and recurring S3 weaknesses acknowledge

What are the reasons why those problems still exist? Does this imply that no strategy or system of assistance can be successful? On the other side, if it is believed that these issues may be resolved, how should the required efforts be prioritised to address the noted regional fundamental deficiencies and what milestones should be established to overcome them?

6 Building an agenda for a dialogue with stakeholders regarding the implementation strategy

Currently, the provision of public support services is based on the juxtaposition of schemes related to several policies that may or may not interconnect with one another nor planned according to the development cycle of firms.

Any fruitful dialogue with stakeholders about the development of a plan for implementing a strategy to support an innovation-driven transformative process ought to start with an inquiring canvas to prepare a vertical integration approach, just like a supply chain, of the support services, to match the needs of any type of regional firms. Such dialogue is needed to provide the state-of-the-art tailored support services required to strengthen the competitiveness of a regional key sector thanks to a comprehensive set of support services.

6.1 Inquiring canvas

The following inquiring canvas is proposed for an exchange of views aiming to verify whether all the key elements of a strategy implementation plan meet the needs of the final beneficiaries. The questions asked for each of the different headings can be reformulated to take account of local realities or a particular objective. It is important to keep in mind that:

- instead of being motivated by beliefs or faiths, goals should be driven by facts

- a lack of adequate analysis and comprehension of past gaps between achievements and expected results or professional benchmarks will prevent the implementation of corrective measures the only way to improve performances

- it is worthwhile to imagine several different scenarios To quickly provide a set of solutions in case of an unforeseen circumstance like a crisis, a discrepancy between outcomes and expectations, or a lack of demand for a specific set of support services,

- before launching any significant changes to the regional ecosystem, a review of a number of its essential components has to be done, including the impact on the access to infrastructure and the availability of specialised human capital, as well as the access to the results of the private sector's needs assessment, feasibility studies, proof of concepts, the readiness of the public administration to align their operative constraints and financial resources and tests.

Table 4 Model of an inquiry canvas

6.2 Vertical integration dashboard to design a comprehensive support service supply chain.

Thinking of a vertical integration of supports is the right entry point to structure an ecosystem for "end-users". It indeed will bring together digital and physical key players to give what end-users desire, when and in the appropriate form they require. This entails information sharing, the use of shared assets, resources, and state-of-the-art practices, all to offer each member a highly tailored experience. Policymakers will ease the process of determining how many ecosystems to establish, while each public or private regional stakeholder will have to determine in which ecosystem he wants to be part and choose the position they wants to play (conductor, active or occasional participant, basic knowledge supplier,…). The ecosystem should be niche and goal-oriented. They are not extremely expensive to implement (aside from the human capital effort required in fragmented administrative settings).

At the end of the day, such a dashboard can act as a directory of service providers and a catalogue of the available support services that are provided. It will also be used to reflect the lack of support services, the delivery process's gaps, and the weak point regarding the connections between support as well as the interactions between the providers.

Table 5. A dashboard to develop a vertical integration of support services.

* Audit, coaching, e-commerce, cybersecurity, big data mining, AI, advance or additive manufacturing, augmented reality, IoT, …

**Micro-credit, guarantees, crowdfunding, leasing, factoring …..

***Open innovation, test beds for regulatory sandboxes, working with suppliers, customers, procurers, peers, researchers, clusters, Fab labs, use of equipment in time sharing, shared economy,…

Such a discussion can clearly show whether the ways to achieve the policy objectives are accepted by the community of end users and are fit for purpose. Otherwise, incorrect prioritization in the implementation method will result in ineffective support service delivery, which ultimately causes it to fail. The agenda must also evaluate the riskiest assumptions, including resource waste, bureaucracy, gaps in services, forgotten stakeholders, low acceptance of public interventions, and inadequate responses to the needs of specific stakeholders. The following benefits come from being aware of and effective at addressing the dangers of incorrect assumptions:

-enabling to fine-tune the offer of support in order to match them with the end-users' expectations

- adjusting the available resources to the need or finding additional ones for specific inconsistencies in the current plan

- anticipating emerging opportunities or threats if a wrong assumption is the basis of the choices

- provide monitoring criteria to ensure that achievements are on track.

[1] After 3 generations of multi-annual EU programming periods the number of regions having a GDP per inhabitants above the EU average is going down. They were indeed 80 in the year 2000 and are only 60 in 2020. This results from the fact that 25 regions all from western EU countries have seen their growth slow down to the point that they have in 2020 a GDP below the EU average while only 5 regions all Central and Eastern capital city regions have grown faster than the EU average growth rate so that their GDP is now above the EU average.

[2]  See for instance the EU national and regional Innovation scoreboards

[3] For instance, Y Combinator, the US star accelerator, provides seed capital in exchange for a stake in the start-up; similarly, many European incubators and science parks are managed by estate managers rather than by business developers or experts in technology ; and only a small number of university technology transfer offices make a sizable amount of money from licensing fees).