IRE Workshop 'Increasing innovation capacities of companies'

While most European regions are home to a limited number of companies with great innovation potential, they tend to be dominated by small, often traditional, enterprises. These firms are often uninterested, unwilling or unable to innovate, not realising that this might be undermining their competitiveness and even endanger their survival on the long term. Reaching these companies and enabling them to realise that innovation is interesting, useful and possible for them is a great challenge for many regional actors.

This workshop, organised by the IRE Secretariat in collaboration with Latvian Investment and Development Agency, aims to present successful examples from the Innovating Regions in Europe (IRE) network members of initiatives that encourage traditionally non-innovative companies to start to innovate. Concrete schemes will illustrate ways of raising these companies’ interest in innovation, facilitating their start of innovation activities, and creating in-house innovation capacities. In addition, group discussions will allow participants to exchange experiences with each other.

Experienced IRE members will give illustrative presentations about the promotion of innovation in their own regions. It is presented a good practice from different regions of European Union, for instance:
- innovation training for companies in Shannon (IE),
- promotion of innovation in traditional firms in Castilla y León (ES),
- training of innovation managers in SMEs in Bretagne (FR),
- placement of academics in low-tech companies in North Sweden (SE).