Analysis of methodological approach to identify smart specialization on the example of Polish regions

The aim of this article is to present and compare the methods of smart specialization identification on the example of Polish regions. In the paper the systematic literature review was conducted in order to identify the methods of smart specialization design. The article presents: (i) the idea of smart specialization strategy in regions, (ii) the presentation of chosen methodological approaches to identify smart specialization at the regional level (iii) the comparison analysis of methods of smart specialization identification in Polish regions. As far as smart specialization is a new idea on European Union, the paper gives a complex overview of methodological approaches to smart specialization identification. The results shown in this paper can be useful in future assessment of the influence of smart specialization on the development of regions. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.