National-regional governance of STI

The Portuguese system of Science, Technology and Innovation is managed nationally by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education. The Ministry formulates, conducts, executes and evaluates the national policy for science, technology and higher education. It comprises scientific and technological innovation, space, guidelines on digital skills, scientific computing, the dissemination of scientific and technological culture and international scientific and technological cooperation, particularly with Portuguese-speaking countries. The Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) is the national public agency that supports research in science, technology, and innovation in all areas of knowledge. It is a public institute under the responsibility of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education. The National Innovation Agency (ANI) intends to catalyse and boost innovation in Portugal. In addition, the General Secretariat for Education and Science (SGEC) ensures specialised technical support to members of the Government and other bodies, services and organizations in the education and science sectors, in the areas of legal support, conflict resolution and litigation, and employment regimes and social relations. At regional level, both the Regional Directorate of Science and Technology of Azores and the Regional Secretariat of Education, Science and Technology of Madeira are responsible for ensuring the political, legal and technical conditions for the promotion of both regions as a knowledge and technology-based society.

National and regional S3s: organisation and governance

The Portuguese approach assumes a multi-level architecture that combines national strategies with strategies of regional incidence. The governance model should also ensure an adequate strategic and operational articulation, guaranteeing that the strategies and policy instruments reinforce each other, through complementarity and synergies. The regional smart specialisation strategy aims to accelerate the consolidation of regional innovation systems. Its policy instruments have a dedicated regional scope and their own governance model, legitimized by the respective Regional Councils, which allow the specialisation of policy instruments and domains, according to the specific characteristics of each region. This complements the national policy intervention. In this sense, the governance model should allow a fruitful combination and articulation between national policies and territorialised policies.

For information on regional S3s, please return to the homepage: https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/assets/s3-observatory/index_en.html