*4.4. Decision-Making and Control*

Based on the interviews and other data available, operators of smart specialisation have many simultaneous tasks related to decision-making, implementation and planning. This is partly due the fact that knowledge is focused. The interviewees emphasised that the commitment and the opportunity to commit to the program activities required tangible justification of an organisation's management of the usefulness of the operation. The various organisations and levels of government seem to require the benefits and results of the project to be justified by way of examples to strengthen national cooperation and to drive the joint strategy forward, and a more robust commitment. The knowledge broker concept focuses on network actions, but according to the European University Association [50] and our interviewees, there are multiple needs and challenges [51] to develop multilevel governance through knowledge-brokerage actions in smart specialisation:

*"* ... *the activity depends on the mandates to act we have* ... *Companies without management at the regional level must have the ability to commit to the cluster actions from higher levels of management* ... *We need to give practical arguments to managers, about what the goals and intended results of smart specialisation based cluster work are."*

—representative of developer's organisation, male.

The network's stability requires that the decision-making is made with organisations that are actors in smart specialisation. The key players are national, European or global companies, or organisations operating in large markets. From the corporate perspective, this highlights project management and directs attention to external communications and the ways in which it is possible to join clusters, and what are the benefits of joining.

The overall picture that emerged from interviews with a network model was based on the various needs of companies. This result is a chance for knowledge brokers to enhance the capacity of cooperation at a regional, national and international level. A joint agreement and understanding of the dynamics are key for enterprises to engage in smart specialisation [12].

Knowledge brokering includes three main features: information management, information exchange and capacity building [13]. Sustainability and the creation of a sustainable mode of operations are significant when describing the HEIs role as knowledge brokers in smart specialisation. The essential benefit of the cluster network is the opportunity for internationalisation, which appears to be an interesting way forward for some companies. The role of knowledge brokers is crucial on this point, because the paths of internationalisation and regional development are not yet entirely clear, and the cluster actors must therefore have a range of opportunities to attach to internationalisation. The problem is that the S3-funded thematic partnership agreements with operators may not relate to the clusters, while the benefit might remain narrow. In addition, the simultaneous roles of actors as implementers and developers, and also the role of authorities, reduce the chances to profit from the benefits of internationalisation. The actors hope for a clearer understanding of how international efforts promote regional impact, the benefits it provides, and how the benefits are returned to the area [5].

In this paper, the role of HEIs as knowledge brokers has been defined through four themes. The role of the actors is not completely clear in smart-specialisation-based projects. There is a clear need for a knowledge broker who encourages and guides internationalisation activities. This work for capacity building is a well-known but sometimes forgotten phenomenon in smart specialisation [5,7,44]. Creating common rules and decisions based on regional need, not only internationalisation, is a task for the knowledge broker. This as well as knowledge capacity emphasises the embeddedness of knowledge brokers and the starting point for clusters [7,52]. Decision-making and control refer to the common understanding and legitimisation of S3 activities. Without a common understanding of the mandates and actions, there is no common future in developing smart specialisation. Information management and the creation of a vibrant atmosphere seems to be a core task for universities as knowledge brokers [5,7].

### **5. Discussion**

Our task in this paper was to outline the role of HEIs as knowledge brokers in smart specialisation and define how knowledge brokers can increase the competitiveness and internationalisation of regions through data which have been collected as part of the implementation of the ASE- project on smart specialisation (Figure 1). The authorisation status of individuals as actors is based on the legitimacy of the HEIs. Without HEIs, individuals cannot play a legitimate role as knowledge brokers. An actor's position is to fulfill the needs of the institutions and the institutions' goals, but as individuals as well as institutional knowledge brokers, they also benefit from their position. The starting point for the implementation project on smart specialisation was innovative, intelligent, constructive and complex. The aim of smart specialisation is regional development, and it requires the beneficiaries of the activity to recognize the potential of new operating models. Defining the benefits and responding to needs should turn to the conscious benefit and involvement of the beneficiaries. The conscious strengthening of the beneficiaries' own activities requires a more extensive role for management and the steering group.

**Figure 1.** The key themes of defining the knowledge brokers' role based on the data of the regional smart specialisation program, Artic Smartness Excellence (2016–2018).

According to the European University Association, HEIs can play an important role in the formation of multilevel governance models based on a smart specialisation strategy [50]. Based on the interviews conducted for this paper, the strengthening of this role requires clarification of the knowledge broker role, which can be promoted from four perspectives. First, achieving effectiveness goals can be verified with regard to the smart specialisation strategic goals achieved. The projects produce many unexpected and unpredictable results, which at best also support the strategic goals of the project. It is essential for the region's businesses and developer organisations to be in a position to know the smart specialisation actors' roles. Clear business practices and tasks create the prerequisites for enterprises to be aware of the future opportunities that smart specialisation can pursue.

Second, the case illuminates the way in which multilevel governance takes place in a sparsely populated and Northern regions. Decisions on cooperation between the innovation system actors takes place as informal cooperation. Therefore, these data and interviews indicate that the key areas of multilevel governance are the implementation and funding decisions of the program. Through these instruments, the preferences of the actors are prioritised through project activities. The formal institutional decision-making is a minor role in network cooperation, and very few actors emphasised decision-making to legitimise the broker's role. This angle brings dynamism to the region's clusters and enables industry to operate in multiple clusters. In this case, it was justified for a cluster to change its participants actively and the admission to be kept open. From this angle, the clusters are open and social networks, rather than closed consortiums. The consortiums take place in projects, and the clusters are a platform for closer cooperation between actors. [51,53].

Third, clustering should be organised in a way that the formal roles can identify their tasks and obligations. The funding guidelines and procedures have not guaranteed this. Finland does not have strong regional innovation systems, but the national innovation system is well established. The starting point of the smart specialisation funding instrument is different, as the key actors are the regional councils and the national-level actors have not been actors in the implementation in decision-making. Based on the data gathered for this paper, this financial instrument alone does not establish a regional innovation system. However, in this way, the smart specialisation program strengthens regional decision-making and creates the infrastructure for the regional innovation system. Knowledge broker roles in HEIs can be identified in building this infrastructure. What these knowledge brokers have in common is their focus on regional projects and regional level networks and partners.

Fourth, the obvious way for the knowledge brokers' mode of operation is to be aware of the tensions of the present actors as part of the Smart Specialisation Program. The overlapping roles and the movement of actors between clusters is a natural part of the operating model but should be based on a clearer governance model.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualisation, R.K. and T.A.; methodology, T.A.; software, R.K.; validation, R.K. and T.A.; formal analysis, R.K.; investigation, R.K. and T.A.; resources, T.A.; data curation, R.K. and T.A.; writing—original draft preparation, R.K. and T.A.; writing—review and editing, R.K. and T.A.; visualisation, R.K.; supervision, T.A.; project administration, R.K. and T.A.; funding acquisition, T.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** The authors acknowledged the financial support from the Arctic Smartness Excellence project (ASE) and University of Lapland, Professions in Arctic Societies- research group (ProSoc).

**Acknowledgments:** We give our acknowledgement to the actors in ASE project and those interviewed for the data of this paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
