Sustainable Smart Specialisation for the Re-opening of Industrial Sites in the Danube Region

Project Information

RIS4Danu

Grant agreement ID: 101058457

DOI

10.3030/101058457

Project closed

EC signature date 29 April 2022

Start date 1 June 2022

End date 31 May 2024

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 999 817,50

EU contribution

€ 999 816,00

Coordinated by

VDI/VDE INNOVATION + TECHNIK GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RIS4Danu (Sustainable Smart Specialisation for the Re-opening of Industrial Sites in the Danube Region)

Reporting period: 2023-06-01 to 2024-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The CSA RIS4Danu implements a series of concerted actions over 24 months to elaborate strategic business development plans for the re-opening of more than 20 disused industrial sites in the Danube Macro-Region. The project directly connects to the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR), a macro-regional strategy to address common economic and societal challenges and create synergies and coordination between existing policies and initiatives. Danube neighbouring states share a proud and centuries-old history of manufacturing and industrial production, yet political upheavals, globalisation and technological advancements have confronted many Danube regions with the challenges of structural transformation and have triggered the closing down of numerous industrial plants and sites. In many regions, plant closures and the associated displacement of workers caused severe socio-economic effects on workers, local communities and regions.

The RIS4Danu project aims at addressing the socio-economic effects of plant closures by proposing solutions for a broader social-sustainable-technological transition through the revitalisation of recently closed industry plants and sites. In this context, RIS4Danu has set the following three overarching objectives:

1. Further developing the existing Smart Specialisation (S3) methodology towards Sustainable Smart Specialisation (S4) to facilitate “green structural change”.
2. Drafting strategic business development plans for the re-opening of more than 20 recently-closed industrial sites in the Danube region. Focus is both, on the growth of the digital industries and the transformation of traditional industries as well as on the integration of sustainable and inclusive growth aspects in the development of transformative activities for structural change.
3. Providing tangible policy recommendations. Focus will be on the identification of innovation barriers and on the creation of synergies with other European, national and/or regional R&I funding programmes.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The RIS4Danu project is structured along 4 thematic work packages:

WP3 (S4+ Concept and Analysis): Building on and further advancing emerging academic and policy debates on S4, WP3 develops the RIS4Danu S4 concept and methodology. Moreover, WP3 builds the empirical evidence base for WP4 and WP5 and contributes to academic and policy debates about how to design and implement S4+actions to promote green and digital transitions in less-favoured regions.

WP4 (Roadmap for Transformative Activities): WP4 develops transformative activities to support the re-opening of industrial sites according to a S4 logic by implementing inclusive Entrepreneurial Discovery Workshops for each of the 21 industrial sites. WP4 builds on the analysis of specific assets and resources (WP3) and aims at sustainable and inclusive transformation opportunities. All gathered information are merged into 21 individual strategic business development plans, that is, key strategy documents for the re-opening of the 21 participating industrial sites.

WP5 (Policy Recommendations): WP5 covers the identification of barriers to innovation in the implementation of the identified transformative activities for the 21 industrial sites, the identification of potential synergies with, and where appropriate possibilities for further funding from other R&I-relevantand funding sources and the provision of tangible recommendations for attracting green and digital private/public investments in the Danube Macro-Region.

WP2 complements and supports the overall project activities by setting up and maintaining the network of Support Partners and local policy makers and representatives of the innovation eco-systems, including the industrial site owners (public and private) in order to enable peer exchange, mutual learning and co-development of evidence-based policy recommendations. In addition, the high level Advisory Board assure the link to the European S4 development and diffusion.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Research on plant closure and redundancies has provided insights into the negative effects on the health status of workers, on tax payments towards regions and municipalities, on the procurement of local goods and services, on house prices, on social cohesion of local communities, etc. Impact I of the RIS4Danu project will be the mitigation of the negative socio-economic effects of plant closure in the 21 selected regions in the Danube Macro-Region.

The revitalisation of industrial ecosystems also represents an opportunity to shift previous paths of economic development towards the direction of green growth by promoting the establishment of a robust and more sustainable economy. While the most popular new functions of post-industrial sites are community areas, culture and services, the space and facilities can, for example, be used for the bundling of breakthrough technology and expertise in the area of green and other new energy forms. Impact II of the RIS4Danu project will be the establishment of new sustainable and inclusive regional industrial ecosystems along the Danube River and the provision of new impetus for green transition.

Plant closures and downsizing often have significant economic impacts with large-scale closures having the potential to significantly reduce economic output and value added in an economy. Municipalities and regions undergoing structural change often suffer not only from reduced economic output from the closed plant itself and from flow-on-effects in the wider economy but also from reduced tax revenues, the loss of talent and increased demand for income support arising from an increase in unemployment. Impact III of the RIS4Danu project will be a positive contribution to added value, productivity and competitiveness of the 21 selected regions in the Danube Macro-Region.

The RIS4Danu project contributes to emerging academic and policy debates on ‘Smart Specialisation Strategies for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth’ (S4). S4 builds on the established conceptualisation and methodology of S3, but takes a major step to its further development, integrating directionality towards sustainability as core element of regional innovation strategies to anchor the European Green Deal and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the ground. Impact IV of the RIS4Danu project will thus be the advancement of debates on the design and implementation of S4 in the scientific community in economic geography, regional science, innovation studies and policy studies.

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