The concept of smart specialisation has become the key-element of the European Union’s cohesion policy and an ex-ante condition for accessing the structural funds. The elaboration and implementation of the smart specialisation strategy (S3) become very important in the Republic of Moldova, in the context of its aspirations for European integration, and because the concept of smart specialisation supports the reorientation of RDI policies towards those research activities that offer results with economic relevance. In this context, the process of developing S3 has started in our country. This is a complex process, which involves different actors and requires their joint efforts. The paper analyses the actions taken and the results obtained at the current stage, such as mapping of economic, innovation and scientific potentials, identifying the preliminary priority areas for smart specialisation with potential for economic development (energy, information and communication technologies, agriculture and food processing, biomedicine and biopharmaceuticals), identifying the main niches for smart specialisation for these areas through the first application of entrepreneurial discovery process, as well as the actions to be undertaken for the successful development and implementation of S3 in our country.