Ricerc@Sapienza

The research project aims to highlight the crucial challenge that European Regions are called to face applying the European Union policy well known as `Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialization¿ (RIS3) for pursuing the virtuous implementation of Cohesion principles and ¿Europe 2020¿ Agenda.

In the on-going process of RIS3 policy implementation, besides the specific attention to the so called ¿lagging regions¿, it is emerging the critical condition of other relevant territorial realities, as the Lazio Region and its Rome metropolitan area, that have been suffering, since the beginning of the global crisis, an alarming economic, social, cultural and institutional decline. The RIS3 policy for Lazio probably represents the most important opportunity and challenge to be managed for flipping its present delicate condition and chasing new horizons of thriving redevelopment.

The research intends to highlight how it is possible to rethink Lazio¿s RIS3 interpretation by denying the uncritical and ineffective reproduction of conventional socio-economic and territorial redevelopment visions that risk to be embraced by the weakest and less organized regional institutions. In this respect, intriguing ideas are emerging from the United States with the on-going cluster strategy and the interesting phenomenon of the ¿Innovation Districts¿.

The research aims to build a critical framework of appropriate case studies (as the Greater Boston area and the San Diego County), whose lessons can be significant especially for the flexible geometry approach in the governance style clearly emerging from the different experiences.

In the Lazio Region, in order to build original RIS3 interpretations integrating the place-based sensitiveness and the entrepreneurial discovery-led innovation process, it is necessary to support bottom up initiatives both business and social oriented rather than privilege only top down, economic and `real estate¿ planning initiatives.