Regional strategy development processes have started again in many European regions and RIS3 (Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation) are perceived as an interesting new research topic.

A call for papers for the “Journal of entrepreneurship, management and innovation” is motivated by two observations:

• First, the focus of many research contributions is dedicated to the mobilizing and stimulating effects of the implementation of RIS3 and its effects on the broader economy as regards innovation, competitiveness, and growth. The analysis of the regional strategy development processes from a strategic management perspective has remained underexplored in this particular research field, so far.
  
• Second, regional strategy development is often not in the focus of strategy research scholars and the comprehensive and systematic inquiry of regional strategy development processes from that perspective is scarce. This special issue on Regional Strategizing intends to bring the two research fields closer together and generate new insights by this combinatorial view.

We invite researchers, practitioners and policy makers to submit papers, which explicitly address, explore or analyze the strategy development and management processes behind the development of regional (innovation) strategies. Doing so, we intend to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how regional strategy processes shaped and what actually takes place in future-oriented regional strategy formulation and implementation. The aim of this special issue is to generate insights about the strategic management approaches and practices in regional development processes.

The guest editors are Elisabeth Baier, Simone Kimpeler, Manuel González López and María del Carmen Sánchez Carreira. The submission deadline is the 30 September 2021.