The innovation ecosystem as booster for the innovative entrepreneurship in the smart specialisation strategy

Framed in the scientific and institutional debate on the intelligent growth of regions, the paper discusses the sustainable innovation ecosystems as dynamic and multi-actors environments for the innovative entrepreneurship fertilisation. In coherence with the European agenda for the smart specialisation, the innovative entrepreneurship is presented as driver for the achievement of the regional intelligent growth and for the regions' successful positioning in the geography of the innovation. Based on a qualitative academic and policy-based literature review, the paper provides evidences on the meaning of the innovation ecosystems as environments in which the virtuous dynamics of knowledge creation, diffusion and absorption within a large community of stakeholders, sustain the emerging of innovative entrepreneurship. Focusing on the innovation and the entrepreneurship as core processes for the knowledge-based regional development, the study offers a set of implications for the agenda of scientists and policy makers, coherently with the European strategy for the smart specialisation.