“Academic sourcing”: Aligning Regional Research Programmes with Smart Specialization Domains

“Academic Sourcing” is a good practice example for implementing smart specialization through a regional programme for research projects and its governance.
Background: In 2008, the Regional Council launched a research grant for the industrial sector (“Bourse Recherche Filière”) to promote the dialogue between research labs & the emerging groups of companies. It has been created to increase scientific knowledge matched to industrial vision. However, only few companies were involved in the projects and able to integrate and apply the research results. In 2010, Auvergne approved the label of “Excellence Cluster” to several regional clusters. So according to this new context, the grant was changed into a Research Grant for Excellence Clusters (“Bourse Recherche Cluster”), dedicated to the consortium of each excellence cluster in the region. This led to a higher number of SMEs involved, but did not exploit the full potential of research projects.
“Academic sourcing”: In 2014, Auvergne defined 5 smart specialization domains (SIS “strategic innovation sectors”). These 5 SIS allow to create multidisciplinary partnerships among the different territory clusters. In order to boost the relationships and the mutual knowledge of the stakeholders within the SIS, the Regional Council adapts a new political tool: for each SIS a board of public and private stakeholders selects the academic topic of research programs (composed of 3 PhD or postdoc grants) in line with the strategy of the SIS.