Cluster - Smart Specialization Relationship

Knowledge, the adoption of new organizational solutions and new technologies, continuousinnovation help ensure the economic development, the competitive advantage, the activity of theresearch-development sector and the capacity of economies to implement its results beingdeterminant for innovation. The emphasis of the role of territories in terms of competitiveness and innovation has beenaccompanied by the development of the phenomenon of clusters, a process associated with the newmodel of territorial development - smart specialization, the goal of which is to increase theefficiency and effectiveness of the economic system, to contribute to sustainable development. The paper refers to the relationship that is created in the regional economic space, between thecluster phenomenon and that of the strategy of smart specialization; in the process oftransformation of the regional economy, the smart specialization strategies take over clusters’policies and clusters integrate activities specific to areas of technological knowledge