S3 and Recovery and Resilience Funds: A Case Study Built on the Experience of 10 Spanish Regions

The EU's response to the COVID-19 crisis, namely the approval of the Next Generation package, provides an opportunity to explore to what extent the existing Smart Specialisation regional strategies and related ecosystems have been taken into account in the highly relevant territorial context in which the national Recovery Plans have been designed. According to our results the potential of the Smart Specialisation approach (S3) in relation with its place-based strategic prioritisation may have been overlooked in the process. The research is based on a desk review of relevant documents and recent literature in this field; followed by semi-structured interviews with regional planners and practitioners from 10 Spanish regions (autonomous communities); complemented, in a second phase, by the organisation of a focus group to validate the initial results. During our research we identified the main contributions that the Smart Specialisation approach has so far made to the regions (mainly in terms of participative governance and creation of regional ecosystems); and the unanimous perception shared by all the practitioners interviewed that the S3 approach has led to a change of vision in public intervention. However, all of the interviewed regions have confirmed that the drafting of the national recovery and resilience plan lacked an ex-ante alignment with the regional S3 strategies, and failed to consider the existing regional S3 ecosystems. The separation of the recovery logic (based on the operation of public consultations at national level to identify strategic projects) from the S3 logic (based on a strategic prioritisation exercise conducted by each regional ecosystem) confirms that an opportunity may have been missed in the recovery planning process to consolidate the multi-actor, multilevel and place-based S3 approach. Although there is a certain degree of disappointment among regional practitioners as a result of this misalignment, the majority of them believe in the possibility of an ex-post alignment between the two processes, that can protect existing regional shared visions. However, without clear recognition of the S3 ecosystems and the S3 managing bodies, the significant role that Smart Specialisation could play in the recovery process may be at risk.

Analysis of the Educational Poverty in Spain by Subjects, Regions and Gender

Quality education is a key factor to improve people’s lives and to achieve sustainable development. Using data from PISA 2009, 2012 and 2015, in this paper the level of educational poverty of the Spanish regions is calculated by applying the Adjusted Bourguignon Chakravarty index, $$B{C}^{a}$$ B C a (Sánchez-García et al. in Soc Indicat Res 145(2): 479–501). A descriptive analysis of the differences in educational poverty by gender and the contribution of each region and subject to the national level of educational poverty is also provided. This information could certainly be considered a starting point to tackle educational poverty in Spain.

Competitive Benchmarking of Tourism Resources and Products in Extremadura as Factors of Competitiveness by Identifying Strengths and Convergences of Spanish Regions in the Period 2010–2018

In a globalized and interconnected world, and with increased leisure time, competition between tourism destinations has increased considerably. For this reason, the periodic measurement of tourism competitiveness has become a basic tool for tourism management today. It is not only necessary to determine the tourism competitiveness of destinations in a given period of time (static analysis); the continuous changes which are now occurring in the tourism industry also make it necessary to measure them from time to time (dynamic analysis). The periodic measurement of the competitiveness of Spanish regions as destinations is the objective of the Monitur report. This paper aims to analyze the evolution of one of its most important mainstays, namely the diversification and structuring of regional tourism products. Based on a set of 25 indicators, the relative evolution of the 17 Spanish Autonomous Regions regarding this mainstay between 2010 and 2018 has been compared, and those aspects in which the regions have shown increased relative competitiveness (convergence or competitive reinforcement) and those in which they have shown reduced relative competitiveness (divergence or competitive weakening) in each region have been identified. Based on the results obtained, a competitive benchmarking exercise was carried out to compare the evolution of Extremadura with that of the four regions with the best overall record in terms of competitiveness between 2010 and 2018. In this way it has been possible to suggest improvements in the region’s range of products and services so as to increase its tourism competitiveness in the medium and longer terms.

Water Footprint Assessment of Food Loss and Waste Management Strategies in Spanish Regions

The availability of freshwater is one of the biggest limitations and challenges of food production, as freshwater is an increasingly scarce and overexploited resource in many parts of the world. Therefore, the concept of water footprint (WF) has gained increasing interest, in the same way that the generation of food loss and waste (FLW) in food production and consumption has become a social and political concern. Along this line, the number of studies on the WF of the food production sector is currently increasing all over the world, analyzing water scarcity and water degradation as a single WF indicator or as a so-called WF profile. In Spain, there is no study assessing the influence of FLW generation along the whole food supply chain nor is there a study assessing the different FLW management options regarding the food supply chain’s WF. This study aimed to assess the spatially differentiated WF profile for 17 Spanish regions over time, analyzing the potential linkages of FLW management and water scarcity and water degradation. The assessment considered compliance and non-compliance with the Paris Agreement targets and was based on the life cycle assessment approach. Results are highlighted in a compliance framework; the scenarios found that anaerobic digestion and aerobic composting (to a lesser extent) had the lowest burdens, while scenarios with thermal treatment had the highest impact. Additionally, the regions in the north of Spain and the islands were less influenced by the type of FLW management and by compliance with the Paris Agreement targets.

Approaches of the Basque Country and Catalonia to Interregional Cooperation: Comparative Analysis

The paper focuses on a comparative analysis of the approaches to interregional cooperation used by two Spanish regions: the Basque Country and Catalonia. The main strategic documents which set the goals, tasks and directions of the autonomous regions in interregional cooperation are considered. Factors that shape the principles of the regions in developing interregional links are described. Spanish legislation which lays foundation for interregional action of the Basque Country and Catalonia is reviewed. Particular attention is paid to the key vectors of partnership between the Spanish and French territories in the framework of two Euroregions: New Aquitaine-Basque Country-Navarre and Pyrenees-Mediterranean. In addition, the main tasks stipulated in the Programme of the Catalan Presidency in the interregional association the Four Motors for Europe are examined. Furthermore, the paper identifies the role of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals in the hierarchy of priorities for interregional action in both regions. As a result of the research, similarities and differences in the approaches to interregional cooperation used by the Basque Country and Catalonia are underscored.

The Regional Efficiency in the Use of European Agricultural Funds in Spain: Growth and Employment Analyses

After World War II, the European Union launched the Common Agricultural Policy. Since then, this programme has been adapting to the new economic and social realities that the European agricultural sector has been going through. Currently, a large part of this programme has been financed with the European Agricultural Guarantee Funds and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. Two packages of funds have been approved in recent decades: one for the 2007–2013 and another for the 2014–2020 periods. This research has had as its main objective to determine whether the Spanish regions maintain homogeneous levels of efficiency in the use of these resources in the management of agricultural programmes from a growth and employment perspective. A methodology that is frequently used by researchers in the efficiency analyses has been chosen: data envelopment analysis. Among the main conclusions obtained are that the efficiency in the management of agricultural funds is very uneven among the studied Spanish regions. Furthermore, these differences are maintained throughout the analysed periods. This study suggests changes and proposes criteria for the allocation of European resources to finance the projects presented by the Spanish regions.