On 18 February 2016, a working meeting organised by the North-East Regional Development Agency and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) - Joint Scientific Research Centre of the European Commission - was held in Piatra Neamt, Romania, to mark the debut, in the North-East Region, of the projects „Competitive advantages and potential for smart regional specialisation in Romania” and „Support for economic growth and governance in less developed European regions”. Implemented in the framework of the European Parliament's Preparatory Actions dedicated to regions with low economic growth, and benefiting from the partnership of DG REGIO, the two projects aim to provide technical assistance for the elaboration and monitoring of the Regional Intelligent Specialisation Strategy (RIS3) and to facilitate its interconnection with the national strategy, by identifying and supporting the exploitation of the economic and innovation potential of the region, and with trans-national and inter-regional partnership support. The aim of the meeting in Piatra Neamt was to introduce and position the different categories of regional actors (public authorities, academia and business) towards the regional process of smart specialisation, to establish the objectives and expectations of the RDA and the North-East Region from this project. On this occasion, the North-East RDA emphasised the importance of carrying out a joint action plan dedicated to increasing the implementation capacity of RIS3 at regional level and to optimising the entrepreneurial discovery capacity, as well as to identifying and efficiently solving the challenges in the field. It was also underlined the importance of improving the collaboration between universities and industry, both in the field of applied research and in the correlation of training programmes with the concrete requirements of the local economy. This first exploratory meeting was attended by representatives of the county councils of the North-East Region, representatives of the main Universities in the capital of Moldova, representatives of the business environment and civil society, who will be part, together with JRC, North-East RDA and other stakeholders in the region, of an interdisciplinary working group dedicated to this project. Implemented from 1 January 2016, in regions in seven European countries (Romania, Poland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Portugal, Hungary and Bulgaria), the two projects will have a duration of 2 years.