Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INNAXE (Inclusive & aligned INNovation Agendas across Europe)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2023-06-30
Project summary:
INNAXE aims at strengthening the interconnection and fostering the dialog among European Life Sciences and Healthtech innovation ecosystems, to increase their efficiency and innovation capacities, with the focus on the twin transformation that ecosystems’ stakeholders are already experiencing. INNAXE intends to define and prepare a joint actionable plan towards more interconnected, inclusive, sustainable, dynamic and competitive Life Sciences and Healthcare innovation ecosystems across the EU and Associated countries, to overcome the current fragmentation when it comes to innovation capabilities. The consortium is composed of 6 leading cluster organisations that bring together, connect, coordinate, dynamise, and accelerate the Life Sciences and Healthtech innovation ecosystems’ community at regional level in Catalonia (Biocat, ES), Île de France (Medicen, FR), Rhine-Neckar (BioRN, DE); at national level in Bulgaria (HLSC, BG) and Denmark (DLSC, DK) and at EU level and Associated Countries (CEBR, BE). The regional/ national ecosystems in this consortium cover all the innovation levels of the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) and Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) , from emerging innovators to innovation leaders. The Joint Action Plan will specifically address performance gaps of emerging and moderate innovator regions, with the help of strong innovator and innovation leader regions. The project will broaden its scope to include ecosystems from other EU and Associated countries through the Council of European BioRegions (CEBR), a partner in this project. INNAXE intends to align the project outcomes to the diverse policies in the EU agenda for innovation, EC Work Programs, and regional, local and national agendas, as well as other EU-funded projects, exploring complementarities and ynergies to draft an optimal Joint Action Plan (JAP).
Objectives:
INNAXE aims to strengthen the interconnection among European Life Sciences and Healthtech innovation ecosystems and foster an open dialog to increase their efficiency and innovation capacities, with the focus on the challenges and opportunities of the twin transformation that stakeholders are already undergoing. This will be materialised in a final JAP towards more interconnected, inclusive, sustainable, dynamic and competitive Life Sciences and Healthcare innovation ecosystems across the EU and Associated countries.
The JAP will specifically address performance gaps of emerging and moderate innovator regions, with the help of strong innovator and innovation leader regions.
INNAXE proposal is submitted as a “Preparatory action for setting up joint programmes among innovation ecosystems actors”, aligned with the European Innovation Ecosystems’ Work Programme. It aims at measuring the ecosystems innovation capacities and pain points, and assessing the impact of the actions and programs that cluster organisations deliver to their ecosystems’ to interconnect players and boost innovation. The project intends to reflect on the suitability of these support actions and programs in relation to the innovation index of the partner regions. INNAXE intends to align the project outcomes to the diverse policies in the EU agenda for innovation, EC Work Programs, and regional, local and national agendas, as well as other EU-funded projects, exploring complementarities and synergies to draft an optimal JAP. Additionally to the long-term JAP, INNAXE aims to generate best practices that help foster dialogue and interconnection between cluster organisations in Europe and increase the impact of the partners’ actions in the current context. The consortium takes leadership in coordinating the project activities but a wide range of clusters and wider ecosystem stakeholders will be engaged in the project based on the joint effort of the core partners.
Specific objectives
O.1 – Map and measure the partners’ ecosystems assets, capacities, needs and pain points.
O.2 – Assess the impact of programmes and services that partner organisations deliver to their ecosystems, aimed at connecting / accelerating / scaling up innovation, talent, competitiveness, with the horizon of the challenges that they will face in the next years.
O.3 – Benchmark practices among partner regions and other clusters with a role of case studies, broadening the scope to more EU territories. This specific objective will entail setting a common set of indicators to assess the impact of programs and services to SMEs and other stakeholders among ecosystems, also identifying the most valuable practices. This objective entails analysing these practices under the light of the innovation performance of a region.
O.4 - Strengthen the dialogue and scale-up the connection among innovation stakeholders at all levels, and among European ecosystems. This objective entails opening the dialogue though a diversity of co-creation and foresight methodologies with stakeholders at regional, national and European levels, through other networks of clusters, regional authorities or agencies, like EURADA, ERRIN, EER, EEN, ECA, etc. to align agendas, policies and strategies.
O.5 – Define and prepare a JAP towards a more interconnected, inclusive, sustainable, dynamic and competitive innovation ecosystems across the EU. The partners will deliver a finalised long-term JAP, easily scalable at EU-level, with the pathways developed in this project to increase the interconnection and foster the inclusive and sustainable innovation at EU level. The JAP will be validated by the relevant stakeholders and will define a collaboration framework for five years. The consortium will seek funding opportunities with regional, national and European authorities, to leverage the EU funding and ensure its implementation. Alignment of innovation agendas is of capital importance to deploy the full potential of the Life Sciences and Healthcare across Europe.
INNAXE aims at strengthening the interconnection and fostering the dialog among European Life Sciences and Healthtech innovation ecosystems, to increase their efficiency and innovation capacities, with the focus on the twin transformation that ecosystems’ stakeholders are already experiencing. INNAXE intends to define and prepare a joint actionable plan towards more interconnected, inclusive, sustainable, dynamic and competitive Life Sciences and Healthcare innovation ecosystems across the EU and Associated countries, to overcome the current fragmentation when it comes to innovation capabilities. The consortium is composed of 6 leading cluster organisations that bring together, connect, coordinate, dynamise, and accelerate the Life Sciences and Healthtech innovation ecosystems’ community at regional level in Catalonia (Biocat, ES), Île de France (Medicen, FR), Rhine-Neckar (BioRN, DE); at national level in Bulgaria (HLSC, BG) and Denmark (DLSC, DK) and at EU level and Associated Countries (CEBR, BE). The regional/ national ecosystems in this consortium cover all the innovation levels of the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) and Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) , from emerging innovators to innovation leaders. The Joint Action Plan will specifically address performance gaps of emerging and moderate innovator regions, with the help of strong innovator and innovation leader regions. The project will broaden its scope to include ecosystems from other EU and Associated countries through the Council of European BioRegions (CEBR), a partner in this project. INNAXE intends to align the project outcomes to the diverse policies in the EU agenda for innovation, EC Work Programs, and regional, local and national agendas, as well as other EU-funded projects, exploring complementarities and ynergies to draft an optimal Joint Action Plan (JAP).
Objectives:
INNAXE aims to strengthen the interconnection among European Life Sciences and Healthtech innovation ecosystems and foster an open dialog to increase their efficiency and innovation capacities, with the focus on the challenges and opportunities of the twin transformation that stakeholders are already undergoing. This will be materialised in a final JAP towards more interconnected, inclusive, sustainable, dynamic and competitive Life Sciences and Healthcare innovation ecosystems across the EU and Associated countries.
The JAP will specifically address performance gaps of emerging and moderate innovator regions, with the help of strong innovator and innovation leader regions.
INNAXE proposal is submitted as a “Preparatory action for setting up joint programmes among innovation ecosystems actors”, aligned with the European Innovation Ecosystems’ Work Programme. It aims at measuring the ecosystems innovation capacities and pain points, and assessing the impact of the actions and programs that cluster organisations deliver to their ecosystems’ to interconnect players and boost innovation. The project intends to reflect on the suitability of these support actions and programs in relation to the innovation index of the partner regions. INNAXE intends to align the project outcomes to the diverse policies in the EU agenda for innovation, EC Work Programs, and regional, local and national agendas, as well as other EU-funded projects, exploring complementarities and synergies to draft an optimal JAP. Additionally to the long-term JAP, INNAXE aims to generate best practices that help foster dialogue and interconnection between cluster organisations in Europe and increase the impact of the partners’ actions in the current context. The consortium takes leadership in coordinating the project activities but a wide range of clusters and wider ecosystem stakeholders will be engaged in the project based on the joint effort of the core partners.
Specific objectives
O.1 – Map and measure the partners’ ecosystems assets, capacities, needs and pain points.
O.2 – Assess the impact of programmes and services that partner organisations deliver to their ecosystems, aimed at connecting / accelerating / scaling up innovation, talent, competitiveness, with the horizon of the challenges that they will face in the next years.
O.3 – Benchmark practices among partner regions and other clusters with a role of case studies, broadening the scope to more EU territories. This specific objective will entail setting a common set of indicators to assess the impact of programs and services to SMEs and other stakeholders among ecosystems, also identifying the most valuable practices. This objective entails analysing these practices under the light of the innovation performance of a region.
O.4 - Strengthen the dialogue and scale-up the connection among innovation stakeholders at all levels, and among European ecosystems. This objective entails opening the dialogue though a diversity of co-creation and foresight methodologies with stakeholders at regional, national and European levels, through other networks of clusters, regional authorities or agencies, like EURADA, ERRIN, EER, EEN, ECA, etc. to align agendas, policies and strategies.
O.5 – Define and prepare a JAP towards a more interconnected, inclusive, sustainable, dynamic and competitive innovation ecosystems across the EU. The partners will deliver a finalised long-term JAP, easily scalable at EU-level, with the pathways developed in this project to increase the interconnection and foster the inclusive and sustainable innovation at EU level. The JAP will be validated by the relevant stakeholders and will define a collaboration framework for five years. The consortium will seek funding opportunities with regional, national and European authorities, to leverage the EU funding and ensure its implementation. Alignment of innovation agendas is of capital importance to deploy the full potential of the Life Sciences and Healthcare across Europe.
During this first period, the INNAXE consortium has focused its efforts in the analytical part of the project.
The actions for ecosystem assessment, cluster benchmarking and impact assessment have resulted in:
- An agreed set of indicators of common relevance to all consortium partners to evaluate how alike or different are the life sciences and health ecosystems under their umbrella.
- Detailed infromation about the future strategies and ways of working of 85 different life sciences and health clusters in Europe.
- An impact assessment logframe useful for the evaluation of how impactful are the actions of cluster organisations.
- Compiled the methodologies to folow for all three assessments from above in a single guidelines document that can be freely used by other clusters.
The actions for ecosystem assessment, cluster benchmarking and impact assessment have resulted in:
- An agreed set of indicators of common relevance to all consortium partners to evaluate how alike or different are the life sciences and health ecosystems under their umbrella.
- Detailed infromation about the future strategies and ways of working of 85 different life sciences and health clusters in Europe.
- An impact assessment logframe useful for the evaluation of how impactful are the actions of cluster organisations.
- Compiled the methodologies to folow for all three assessments from above in a single guidelines document that can be freely used by other clusters.
While there are practices widespreasd in clusters organisations to be aware of what is happening in their regions, this is not done in a standardises way, being thus the information not comparable between regions. Furthermore impact assessment is not commonly implemented. INNAXE, by providing guidelines on both topics opens the door for clusters to expand their knowledge and adapt their strategies and actions (including those that are collaborative between regions), based on reliable information.