exploitation of the related variety inherent in

Working Paper

INTRODUCTION The Urdaibai Bird Center’s experience

Presentation of the case study

In the ever more complex current competitive context, marked by an increasing globalisation of competition and markets, a model of smart specialisation must be introduced, in which territories will have to give priority to future projects as the only way to maintain a path of sustainable development.

Given these new models, territories will have to look to specialisation patterns that differentiate them from others, and also reinvent these patterns as the economic, technological, social and environmental context changes. This reinvention is to be brought thanks to entrepreneurial discoveries. These discoveries are watersheds in terms of doing things and closely rooted to the territory contribute to creating wealth and employment.

The case of the Urdaibai Bird Center - UBC is a clear example of one of these discoveries. The UBC complex is located in the heart of the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve, where, for environmental reasons, there are major limits on the paths for development that can take place.

For this territory, the Center constitutes a commitment to maintaining the location’s environmental nature,_while_ contributing to other activities that could lead to local development and create value for society. This case can be considered an example of entrepreneurial discovery which meets the paradigm of disadvantaged territories which have made use of smart specialisation and the knowledge economy. The differential value of the UBC’s entrepreneurial discovery is based on a capacity to make the economy-society-environment triad compatible in a territory that requires a proposal for territorial development different from traditional ones.

In economic terms, the Center is currently becoming a technical and research hub that allows the testing of latest generation of ICT solutions. These solutions, applied to monitoring Urdaibai’s unique biodiversity, can create externalities in fields like logistics, security, aerospace, etc.

In social terms, the Center contributes to the creation of a node capable of attracting international talent, which in turn contributes to connecting the territory in an open perspective. For this reason, its development provides the creation of new activities based on tourism, education and environmental education and training.