World Bank experts drafted a report in support of the development of Bulgaria's Smart Specialisation Strategy. The report assesses the country's governance structure,  its innovation facilitating instruments, and key innovation assets, such as research and human capital. Here are some of the conclusions:

• Bulgaria’s innovation performance over the last decade has fallen short of expectations;
• Bulgaria’s future economic growth is dependent on its becoming a knowledge economy, with high value-added products and services being the key competitiveness drivers;
• There are three major areas that, if addressed by the government, will dramatically improve the innovation agenda;
  • Effective implementation of innovation support programmes;
  • Improving coordination among governmental bodies;
  • Emphasising accountability for results.

Read the full World Bank report Source: Bulgarian Ministry of Economy and Energy

Note: Smart Specialisation is a strategic approach to economic development through targeted support to Research and Innovation (R&I). It will be the basis for Structural Fund investments in R&I as part of the future Cohesion Policy's contribution to the Europe 2020 jobs and growth agenda. More generally, smart specialisation involves a process of developing a vision, identifying competitive advantage, setting strategic priorities and making use of smart policies to maximise the knowledge-based development potential of any region, strong or weak, high-tech or low-tech. Source: European Commission- Smart Specialisation Platform

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Graph from the report EU Cohesion Policy contributing to employment and growth in Europe Source: European Commission

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Source: Annual activity reports  DG REGIO and DG EMPL

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Follow us on Facebook and Twitter Data from  www.eufunds.bg

Belgium

• Simplify and reinforce coherence between employment incentives, activation policies, labour matching, education, lifelong learning and vocational training policies for older people and youth.

Bulgaria

• Accelerate the national Youth Employment Initiative, for example through a Youth Guarantee.
• Adopt the School Education Act and pursue the reform of higher education, in particular through better aligning outcomes to labour-market needs and strengthening cooperation between education, research and business.

Denmark

• Improve the quality of vocational training to reduce drop-out rates and increase the number of apprenticeships.

Estonia

• Continue efforts to improve the labour-market relevance of education and training systems, including by further involving social partners and implementing targeted measures to address youth unemployment.