Green technologies and Smart Specialisation Strategies: a European patent-based analysis of the intertwining of technological relatedness and key enabling technologies

This paper investigates the green diversification of regional technologies and its consistency with the Smart Specialisation logic of related diversification. It also analyses the role that key enabling technologies (KETs), as a key pillar of Smart Specialisation Strategies (RIS3), have in green branching. Working on a patent-based panel (1981–2013) of 240 European regions, it is found that the relatedness to pre-existing knowledge makes a new green-tech specialization more probable. This holds true for the relatedness to both green and non-green pre-existing knowledge, but to a greater extent for the latter. Thus, the ‘hybridization’ of non-environmental technologies seems to require lower cognitive proximity than ‘pure’ green branching. Regional KETs also facilitate the transition towards sustainable technologies and negatively moderate the green impact of the relatedness to pre-existing technologies, both green and non-green. The results confirm that Smart Specialisation policies and the support to KETs could also help regions move towards environmental sustainability.