Revitalisation of Disused Industrial Sites: Aligning Local Interests and Regional Priorities for Green Growth. A Workshop Concept based on Sustainable Smart Specialisation.

The revitalisation of disused industrial sites represents an opportunity to shift previous paths of economic development towards the direction of green growth by promoting the establishment of a robust and more sustainable economy. While current examples of post-industrial sites mostly feature commercial, culture or community usage, the space and facilities can be used for the development of innovative green capacities. These sites could serve as sustainable regional innovation anchors, unleashing opportunities for the entire region to strengthen its capacity to develop innovative solutions to place-specific ecological, social and economic challenges. Based on their experiences of the Horizon Europe Project RIS4Danu, the authors of this study share significant evidence on how to facilitate this process by applying a revised Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) inherent in Smart Specialisation (S3).