Regions of Central Europe develop new policies for increased innovation and competitiveness
"International competitiveness with its challenges in terms of innovation dynam-ics, climate change and sustainability requires new concepts for determining in-novation in clusters," said Daniel Rousta, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Economics, at Wednesday (14th December) in Stuttgart, at the opening of the European conference "Boosting Innovation in Central Europe". "The wealth of experience of the innovation partners in Central Europe calls for collaboration when addressing the upcoming issues." Social challenges, such as the ageing of society, climate change and the neces-sity for more sustainability will change the economy and markets in the European Union. This means altered requirements for products and services, as well as production processes. On 14th December 2011, at the conference "Boosting In-novation in Central Europe", around 100 participants discussed the possibilities for how companies, together with their innovation partners in science, research, chambers and associations can successfully meet these challenges together in clusters and innovation networks. High-ranking experts from the European Commission and from various Central and Eastern European countries were present on site. The Ministry of Finance and Economics and the Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum issued the invitations to the European conference. Clusters, understood as regional collections of companies from an industry or from a technological field or field of competence, possess a special capacity for innovation. The Ministry of Finance and Economics practises, therefore, a tar-geted policy to fund clusters as part of its innovation policy. In close reconcile-ment with the ministry, the Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum has been coordinating the strategic project "CluStrat - boosting innovation through new cluster concepts in support of emerging issues and cross-sectoral themes" since October 2011. "The funding of clusters is also a European challenge. The new project “CluStrat” will develop new concepts for improving the competitiveness of clusters, specifi-cally for Central Europe," emphasised Prof. Norbert Höptner, Commissioner for Europe of the Minister of Finance and Economics and Director of the Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum. Through new policies, clusters are to be supported in promot-ing the necessary innovations, so that they can react successfully to new mar-kets and overarching requirements, such as ecological sustainability. In the project, Baden-Württemberg engages in an intensive technical exchange of ideas with the 17 other project partners, as well as seven associated organisa-tions from Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slova-kia, Slovenia and the Ukraine. "It is a matter of very experienced regions, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, regions with a great potential for develop-ment," continued Höptner. "As a result of the exchange with selected experts, we are awaiting important new stimuli for Baden-Württemberg too." At the centre of the project are the challenges for future markets, especially cross-sectoral technologies and services and the potential of their cross-sectoral applications in traditional sectors. A second important issue is cross-sectoral is-sues, such as gender and diversity, internationalisation and technology transfer, and their significance for innovation processes. All the activities are embedded in an ongoing policy dialogue, in which the project objectives and interim results are discussed with representatives of politics, initially on a regional and national level, then on a transnational level. The CluStrat project is funded with up to 2.9 million euros from the European Fund for Regional Development, in the context of the EU funding programme IN-TERREG CENTRAL EUROPE. Moreover, CluStrat is seen as a lighthouse pro-ject in the context of the EU strategy for the Danube area - eleven of the 18 part-ners are in the Danube area. Central Europe Programme CENTRAL EUROPE is a European Union programme that encourages cooperation among the countries of Central Europe to improve innovation, accessibility and the environment and to enhance the competitiveness and attractiveness of their cities and regions.CENTRAL EUROPE invests €231 million to provide funding to transnational cooperation projects involving public and private organisations from Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. The programme is financed by the European Regional Development Fund and runs from 2007 to 2013. Interested partnerships are invited to propose their projects following public calls for proposals, which will be widely publicised. CENTRAL EUROPE provides funding for cooperation projects covering four thematic areas: PRIORITY 1: Facilitating innovation across Central Europe PRIORITY 2: Improving accessibility to, and within, Central Europe PRIORITY 3: Using our environment responsibly PRIORITY 4: Enhancing competitiveness and attractiveness of cities and regions Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum (SEZ) is an independent economic entity within the Steinbeis Founda-tion. It was founded in March 1990 as the operational unit of the Commissioner for Europe of Baden-Württemberg's Minister of Economics. SEZ's core activity is to promote European RTD pro-grammes and to support cross-border technology transfer. These activities are supported by the Enterprise Europe Network of the European Commission. SEZ has offices in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. SEZ offers first-hand solutions to companies, research institutions and universities as well as to public authorities in Baden-Württemberg. It gives advice regarding European fundings and entre-preneurship as well as regional futures strategies and is competent in the organisation of Euro-pean events. At the same time it cooperates with regional business development agencies, min-istries of Baden Württemberg (Ministry of Finance and Economics and Ministry of Science, Re-search and the Arts) and federal ministries (BMBF, BMWi). SEZ links Baden-Württemberg with European regions and, thereby, supports in a qualified way the work of the Commissioner for Europe of Baden-Württemberg's Minister of Finance and Economics. Project Manager CluStrat: Dr. Petra Püchner, Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum E-Mail: puechner@steinbeis-europa.de
Countries
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom