Guidelines for Territorial Impact Assessment Applied to Regional Smart Specialisation Strategies

Abstract

The main rationale behind the production of a TIA is that the large majority of EU-funded programmes and policies have indirect or direct impacts on most of the dimensions of territorial development. Taking into account that, in the set of public policy instruments of the European Union Cohesion Policy 2014–2020, regional smart specialisation strategies (RIS3) were one of its most important ‘flagships’ and that its relevance will be reinforced in the 2021–2027 programming period, it is crucial to continue to deepen and refine the application of Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) approaches to RIS3’s design, monitoring and evaluation processes. Thus, the main objective of this chapter is to contribute to the construction of a more integrated and multidimensional approach with regard to the application of TIA to RIS3’s implementation and management.