Sustainable Innovation across Key Sectors and Societal Challenge 5: Insights from and for Slovenia

The European Union (EU) targets growth based on smart, sustainable and inclusive economies, which can be promoted through profound changes in the European economic sectors largely spurred by the increasing importance and penetration of ICT throughout the European societies. Opportunities for industrial sectors to renew themselves are largely provided by sustainable innovations. This policy brief looks at the sectoral relevance of the SI initiatives collected in the CASIPEDIA against the challenges of climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials. The policy brief discusses how key policy developments at the national level are related to SI and connects the sectoral analysis on SC5 with policy developments at the national level. Slovenian’s Smart Specialisation Strategy (S4), targets three priority areas: healthy working and living environment, natural and traditional resources for the future and (S)industry 4.0. Natural and traditional resources represents challenging priority based also on CASI evidence of sustainable innovation. Special attention is focused on sustainable energy production, sustainable food production and sustainable tourism.