The Life Cycle of Clusters: A New Perspective on the Implementation of S3

In recent years the urge to sharpen strategic public actions, in the way of boosting regional economic performances, has become an imperative. Accordingly, the concept of Smart Specialization Strategy (S3) has attracted growing consideration, by bringing to light an innovative, place-based policy framework for regional economic development. Although S3 policies has been widely examined by many scholars, nonetheless some implementation gaps remain under addressed. The key issue where the debate is still open relates to the operationalization of the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP). The EDP is a crucial stage in S3 policy design, since it drives to identify priorities by focusing on exploration and experimentation of new opportunities to transfer them in a clustering phase. Considering this backdrop, the paper seeks to contribute in bridging the S3 implementation gaps by investigating the potentials of the Cluster Life Cycle (CLC) analysis to guide the operationalization of the EDP. The paper presents and discusses a conceptual model towards highlighting if, and how stage-specific features of clusters (in terms of dynamism, cooperation among firms, diversity of knowledge and actors, and spatial significance) provide potential input in the operationalization of EDP, to enhance S3 implementation. Ultimately, the authors find that EDP implementation could significantly benefit the framework conditions of dynamism, cooperation, variety provided by some specific stages of the CLC.