4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 78 June 2005, Ljubljana, Slovenia

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Conclusions of Session 5 Presentations of the
IRE Working Groups Zoya Damianova, Applied
Research and Communications Fund, Bulgaria
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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• Today, the performance of economies depends on
  their ability to produce, acquire, protect,
  translate, accumulate, combine and apply
  knowledge. Creating and applying knowledge depend
  on networking, multidisciplinary approaches and
  interaction between science, society and economy.
  Thus, the ability to produce and deploy knowledge
  effectively has become the major source of
  competitive advantage, wealth creation and
  improvements in the quality of life.

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• In order to respond to the renewed Lisbon
  Agenda, i.e. to increase and improve investment
  in research and development, and meet the
  Barcelona objective for 3 of GDP for research,
  European regions should build on all their
  strengths - industrial, research, and
  entrepreneurial - to merge their industries with
  the knowledge-economy technologies to reduce
  operational costs and stay globally competitive.
  To do so, regions need to have their
  comprehensive RTDI policies and programmes in
  place.

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• The performance of European regions and the
  challenges they face are quite diverse, but most
  of them recognise common needs advice and
  guidance in their RTDI policy formulation and
  implementation, exchange of know-how and
  experience, benchmarking and application of
  foresight/initiation of prospective studies so as
  to be able to make informed policy decisions.
• The clear need for transregional cooperation when
  addressing these needs has been stressed upon
  already by several speakers during the
  conference.

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• These needs have been adequately addressed by
  various stakeholders in Europe.
• The response of the European Commission
• a number of initiatives for exchange of
  experience and mentoring, benchmarking and mutual
  learning (the IRE Network, the initiative
  Blueprints for foresight actions in the regions
  of DG Research, the European Trend Chart on
  Innovation 2003 European Innovation Scoreboard
  Regional Innovation Performance, the Practical
  Guides to Regional Foresight, the Mutual Learning
  Platform Initiative)
• The response of the IRE Secretariat
• Coordinating working groups with the mission to
  develop methodologies and generate knowledge
  which will aid the European regions in the
  formulation and implementation of their overall
  regional policy.
• The response of the regions
• Bottom-up initiatives The Industrial Regions
  Group, the RIS-NAC Implementation Group

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• Four working groups were presented during
  Session 5 as follows
• WG1 Cooperation and Partnership between Business
  and Science
• WG2 Regional Clustering and Networking
• WG3 Mutual Learning Platforms for the Regions
• WG4 Industrial Regions

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• WG1 and WG2 have been established with the
  support of the IRE Secretariat. Initially to run
  for two years, the subgroups focus on
  university-industry collaboration and cluster
  development (WG1 and WG2). For each topic, the
  subgroup members will develop knowledge and
  methodologies that can be used by other European
  regions.

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• WG1 Cooperation and Partnership between
  Business and Science
• The aim is
• to identify the infrastructure and human capital
  needed to enhance science-industry collaboration
  in a region
• to examine mechanisms that could boost regional
  co-ordination between RD institutions, education
  and industry
• to analyse methods to encourage companies to work
  with science institutions
• The intention is to develop a blueprint or
  strategic framework that can be adapted and used
  by other regions to increase the number of
  businesses collaborating with and obtaining
  information from universities and research
  centres. The blueprint will summarise the
  experience of the participating regions and
  identify practical issues of guidance to other
  regions.
• The message the cooperation between science and
  business is the most important factor for
  successful innovation. The successful innovation
  is peoples business it is the chemistry
  between individuals from the universities and
  from the companies that make it really works. The
  regions are to target their efforts towards
  encouraging this cooperation.

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• WG2 Regional clusters as innovation drivers
• The strategic objectives of the subgroup are
• To create a continuous learning process amongst
  the IRE member regions
• To increase efficiency and effectiveness of
  public support to cluster initiatives
• To help test a model for supporting regions in
  improving their cluster policies and actions to
  serve as a learning tool
• To contribute to the ongoing process of
  industrial integration in Europe
• The aim is to increase regions understanding of
  the design, establishment, implementation and
  impact of cluster initiatives.
• The message Regions, through a continuous
  learning process and cooperation, find
  inspiration, and access to best practices and
  strategies, which could be useful for developing
  their own tools, including clusters, and the IRE
  sub-group on clusters is an excellent opportunity
  for a region to do so.

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• WG3 Mutual Learning Platform for the Regions
• The Mutual Learning Platform (MLP) is a European
  Commission initiative which aims to enable all
  regions to fully enter the knowledge-based
  society and benefit from increased investment in
  research and innovation. The MLP is developed
  under the leadership of the European Commissions
  Enterprise and Industry DG, with the
  participation of Research DG, Regional Policy DG
  and Information Society DG. An MLP Board has been
  established to co-ordinate the Platforms
  activities.
• The MLP provides regional policy-makers and
  practitioners with the opportunity to learn with
  and from each other. It is expected to result in
  concrete tools for aiding the regional
  policy-makers involved in research and innovation
  activities.
• The activities of the MLP concentrate on three
  core topics regional foresight, regional
  benchmarking and regional profiles in research
  and innovation. Working groups are set up around
  these themes, and two workshops presenting case
  studies are being organised for each topic with
  the objective of producing concrete suggestions
  for regional policy makers.
• The message Regional practitioners are invited
  to bring in their practical experience and
  know-how to design tools for policy-making with
  regards to foresight, benchmarking and regional
  profiles. Initiated by the European Commission
  and supported by the IRE Secretariat the success
  of MLP will depend on the commitment of the
  regions for its implementation.

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• WG4 The Industrial Regions Group
• Bottom-up initiative, the group originally formed
  in 1997 as a network for exchanging experience on
  the RIS/RITTS process, 9 regions
• Objectives of the Group in 1997 To support the
  RIS/RITTS processes in the participating regions,
  the formulation and implementation of the
  strategies, and to promote networking among the
  participating regions
• Results 14 meetings packed with hands-on
  experience and regional good practice, a platform
  for collaboration in other areas and projects,
  micro-project on industrial cluster benchmarking
• The message launched as a bottom-up initiative
  it is the right time to address more and more
  regions and make it more vital.

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4th IRE PLENARY CONFERENCE 7-8 June 2005,
Ljubljana, Slovenia

• Conclusions
• The WGs are focused on hot issues in terms of
  formulation and implementation of regional
  innovation policy
• After testing the proposed approach the number
  of IRE sub-groups could be increased
• The participation of New Member States and the
  Candidate Countries in these working groups could
  be expanded mutual learning, transfer of
  experience
• More bottom-up initiatives from the regions for
  transregional collaboration with a focus on
  regional innovation policy implementation
• It would be useful for the other regions to
  summarise the advantages and difficulties faced
  during the design and implementation of these
  initiatives
• RIS-NAC Implementation Group of Central and
  Eastern European RIS regions - collaborating on
  the implementation of their innovation
  strategies. It would be useful to organise joint
  meetings between this group and the II Generation
  of RIS-NAC projects methodological support,
  transfer of experience