Today, the Commission announced the 63 regions, seven cities and four
Member States selected in the pilot project for
Partnerships for Regional Innovation, an initiative developed together with the Committee of the Regions.
Participants in the pilot action are open to share good practices and to
co-develop and test tools to mobilise multiple sources of funding and
policies, and connect regional and national programmes to EU initiatives
for the green and digital transformations. These Partnerships will feed
into the new Innovation Agenda for Europe, where innovation drives the
transformation for sustainability, connecting local strategies with
EU-level initiatives.
The call has attracted a wide representation of the EU innovation
ecosystem, ranging from Member States such as Slovakia participating at
national level and a broad variety of EU regions, such Andalusia, Azores,
Hauts-de-France, Ostrobothnia, Podkarpackie, North Aegean, Emilia Romagna
and many others. The call has also triggered a bottom-up collaboration and
networking process, already bringing together many participants as part of
multi-region networks. This includes, for example, the Baltic Sea region,
the Bioregions facility and an expanded Cities 4.0 Consortium (Leuven,
Bologna Turku) involving also Eindhoven (NL), Espoo (FI) and Cluj-Napoca
(RO).
Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya
Gabriel, said
: “Stronger, cleaner economies, and fairer societies can be built only
by having innovation at the core of the EU policy agenda. We need
innovation in every region and in every country, connecting with each
other, if we are to succeed in the green and digital transitions. These
Partnerships allow us to build bridges to facilitate synergies of
investment and innovative solutions. I am looking forward to see the
innovative ideas and approaches they will shape together.”
Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, said:
"Cooperation and innovation are essential ingredients for the
sustainable and resilient development of EU's regions. All territories
have an innovation potential that needs to be tapped, so I was glad to
see such high interest for the call. I look forward to the results of
the pilot, hoping that it will contribute to bridge the persistent
innovation divide between regions that limits the performance of the EU
as a whole."
President of the European Committee of the Regions, Apostolos Tzitzikostas,
said:
"By fostering innovation, we strengthen local resilience and improve
our local communities' capacity to face emergencies, protect citizens
and support local economies.
In this context, we count on Commissioners Ferreira and Gabriel to work
together on t
he Partnerships for Regional Innovation as a key tool to coordinate all
available funds to spread innovation on the ground, focusing on making
our regions, cities and villages more energy efficient and
sustainable."
Partnerships for Regional Innovation Playbook
The participants in the pilot project will explore the new Partnerships for
Regional Innovation based on the ‘Partnerships for Regional Innovation
Playbook', an initial guidance document published today by the
Joint Research Centre. The Playbook proposes a wide range of tools and
governance mechanisms to enhance the coordination of regional, national and
EU innovation policies to implement Europe's green and digital transitions
and to tackle the innovation divide in the EU. A core element of the
proposed approach is the introduction of local missions to coordinate
actions under a coherent directional logic, enabling the exploration of
broad-ranging policy mixes for system-level innovation.
During the Pilot Action, the participants will test these policy tools
while co-creating operational guidance. The Playbook and Pilot Action will
also promote good practices, facilitate learning through experimentation
and support public administrations and the broader ecosystem. The pilot
action will not impact the current programming process of the 2021-2027
funds.
Background
The Partnerships are rooted in the
upcoming new Innovation Agenda for Europe
to help integrate initiatives and investment at EU and national levels. It
is an effort directly targeted to improve Innovation ecosystems as one
essential area to boost Europe's innovation performance. The key objective
is to strengthen interconnection of regional and local innovation
ecosystems and to reinforce European sustainable value chains and deep-tech
sectors.
The Partnerships are a complementary approach, which builds on positive
experience with Smart Specialisation strategies.
Smart Specialisation
is a place-based approach emerging from the EU cohesion policy, aiming to
identify strategic areas for intervention based both on the analysis of the
strengths and potential of the economy and on an Entrepreneurial Discovery
Process (EDP) with wide stakeholder involvement. Smart specialisation is
focused on innovation and has a major role in supporting research and
innovation to ensure sustainable and resilient development of all regions
in Europe.
The selected territories will participate either on an individual basis or
as part of six different networks of EU regions and cities. In total, 23 Member States
are represented among the participants in the pilot action. The
call for expression of interest
was open between March and April 2022.
Source: Partnerships for Regional Innovation (europa.eu)
For More Information
Partnerships for Regional Innovation – Smart Specialisation Platform
European Committee of Regions SEDEC website
Partnerships for Regional Innovation Playbook
Maps of participants in the call