Europe's most innovative regions are praised in Lyon
Fifteen European regions were awarded the European Commission's PAXIS prize for innovative excellence at a high-profile awards ceremony in Lyon on 20 November. The prizes recognise and bestow kudos on regions with the most promising ability to nurture start ups and entrepreneurship in the high-tech sector. PAXIS 'the pilot action of excellence in innovative start ups,' is a 14 million euro pilot addition, launched by the European Commission last year to encourage Europe's most innovative regions to spread to spread the secret of their success. The idea for PAXIS grew from the first European forum for innovative companies held in Vienna in 1998, which drew up plans to encourage innovation and support the creation of start ups in the Member States. PAXIS is now supported through the Commission's 'Innovation' programme. 'A new kind of entrepreneur has developed over the last years, combining knowledge of new technologies and global environment,' said Dr Giulio Grata, acting deputy Director-General of DG Enterprise, as he opened proceedings at the second European forum on innovative enterprises. 'Innovation is very high on the political agenda and since 1995...a great deal has been achieved. But there are still major differences between different regions in Europe. PAXIS aims to identify and stimulate networking among best actors...We would like to delve into the thoughts and strategies that Europe should follow in the field. We also need to know, analyse and congratulate the existing good practices.' Commitment and cooperation in Europe 'These 15 regions are leading the way in facilitating the creation and development of innovative enterprises,' said Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner for Enterprise, when he and the former French Prime Minister Raymond Barre, joined Christian Pierret, the French secretary of state for industry and the deputy Mayor of Lyon Jacques Moulinier, to present the winners with their awards. 'They are not the only dynamic regions in Europe but they have surpassed their commitment to Europe and their willingness to cooperate. The Union and its Member States attach great importance to innovation at a regional level, so we must set up back-up structures to help innovative regions to emerge.' Mr Barre stressed the need to maintain and increase cooperation and the importance of the work done by organisations like the European Commission and the Eureka initiative. 'It is vital that regions work together in networks and exchange best practices between regions,' he said. The winners will now be able to use the gold symbol of their trophies on letter-headed paper and on other printed material as a 'label of excellence'. Some 35 regions responded to a call for proposals for the pilot action funding and the successful ones were selected using 24 'competitiveness indicators'. These included gross domestic product per capita (*) and the level of research expenditure in the region, available infrastructures and costs such as electricity, transport and communications. In addition, the regions had to be able to demonstrate strong support from the political authorities. 'The decision was taken to group the regions into three or four networks,' the Commission explains. In some cases the groupings were apparent from the standpoint of the regions that had worked together in the past proposing themselves for a network....In some cases the agencies are public sector organisations such as regional or municipal authorities but in other instances regions are represented by intermediary organisations with delegated responsibility from a public authority. Representatives from the 15 winning regions met in September this year and organised themselves into the following four networks: The winners - 'KREO' brings together Oxfordshire (UK), Karlsruhe-Pforzheim (DE), Lyon-Grenoble (FR) and Emilia-Romagna (IT). The group's slogan 'Partners in spinning off projects from a research base' reflects these areas' strong education and research background. 'The KREO members have a great track record in spinning off companies from a research base in areas such as biotechnology, information communication technologies (ICT), microtechnology (and) manufacturing technologies,' says the Commission. - The 'HIGHEST' network unites the Alpes-Maritime (FR), Helsinki region (FI), Torino (IT) and Southern Sweden (SE). Dubbed the 'Network of specialists in ICT,' they have already worked together in many common sectors such as e-commerce. 'We want to try to find the strong points of each area to link them,' said Mr Alain André , who coordinates the Alpes-Maritime team. 'We want to identify and define the best model for innovative start ups and learn from each other...The final result will be to give recipes for the whole of Europe [showing] how to encourage innovative start ups.' - Stockholm (SE), Cambridge (UK), Stuttgart (DE) and Madrid (ES) come together as 'SPRING'. Stockholm's boom in IT, multimedia and telecoms, Madrid's numerous technology parks, and the recent growth in the number of high-tech businesses in Cambridge mean the SPRING network includes the 'fastest growing innovative regions' according to the European Commission. 'Stuttgart was identified in a Eurostat report last year as the high-tech capital of the EU,' it adds. 'The report found that the high technology sector accounted for 23.3 per cent of its total employment.' - 'Three secret capitals are working together' says the Commission if the 'PANEL' cluster of Munich (DE), Milan (IT) and Barcelona (ES). 'The three cities are of a similar size and profile - none are capital cities but all are the first or second most powerful economic centres in their respective countries.' The Commission now hopes the regions will form a 'European showcase for innovation,' which will encourage other economic areas to implement similar initiatives which can be adapted to suit their local environments. So the prize-giving ceremony marks just the beginning of the networks' mission. Now they will aim to: - identify existing resources and competencies in the areas of excellence; - identify relevant experiences and existing players; - organise information flows and interactive workshops, seminars, groups etc; - exchange information, knowledge and skills; - and disseminate success stories and good practice. Each thematic network will also concentrate on priorities outlined in the EU's innovation policy, such as: - instruments for start-up financing; - technology transfer for high-tech companies and for application of high-tech in traditional companies; - support of start ups in subcontracting chains; - improvement of education and training on entrepreneurship. The benefits for prizewinners The PAXIS prize winners' 'club of excellence' is just one strand of this initiative. In addition, PAXIS supports 24 validation projects (selected from some 72 proposals) focusing on the factors contributing to the success of innovative enterprises. During the next 18 months the Commission will provide each project with 50 per cent of its total cost up to a maximum of 400,000 euro. (A list of the projects is available from the PAXIS webservice on CORDIS at the link below.) The pilot action also include accompanying measures to support the networks of excellence, These include organising promotional events, creating a web site, a newsletter, and arranging an 'innovation policy interface,' consisting of a series of expert panels, visiting schemes, workshops and benchmarking exercises. The Commission has now appointed a team of specialists to perform benchmarking exercises that will analyse efficiency, technology transfer and support mechanisms in the regions of excellence and validation projects involved. The results will be used by a high-level 'think-tank' to produce a set of generic guidelines for innovative priorities to be implemented at regional, national and local levels and contribute to the Commission's proposals for a European innovation policy. 'We can't regulate the spirit of enterprise and innovation but one thing we can do is abolish the obstacles,' said Commissioner Liikanen. 'Secondly we can create benchmarking to learn from the experiences of others. In Europe we know too little of what the others are doing. If we can learn from each other it would be an enormous push to innovation.'