dr. guenter clar, © eu - liaison office for research and technology steinbeis - europa - zentrum...

Dr. Guenter Clar, © EU - LIAISON OFFICE FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY • STEINBEIS - EUROPA - ZENTRUM • STUTTGART

SEZ - STEINBEIS-EUROPA-ZENTRUM

Trans-regional Co-operation in

Strengthening the Strategic Dimension

- and thus the Success -

of Regional RTDI Strategies

Dr. Günter Clar

Dublin, 19 April, [email protected]



European Challenges

GDP per capita

Input/output relation, efficiency

Competitiveness and Quality of Life in the EU (discrepancies!)

Innovativeness in EU

Investment in Research, Technology Development and Innovation (RTDI) - human and financial resources

Mobility & adaptability, co-operation & structured communication

Transition to knowledge-based society (beyond RTDI fields)



3 Strands of EU Policy Development

Formally, RTDI has become a key issueo in EU policy in general

o In EU 2007-2013 budget in general (far beyond the RTDI Framework programmes)

Importance of Strategic Policy Intelligence (SPI) for administration, for enterprises, for NGOs

o a better decision base to improve quality of policy design, the credibility of the process, and the implementation,

o far reaching impacts on economic and business intelligence

Need for better policy integration and impact – importance of regional actors



Regions Strengthening EU Strategies

Regional RTDI governance in EU context - ‘vertical’ effect, interaction with other governance levels:

o adapting EU and national RTDI policy approach to specific territorial conditions, and

o communicating / feeding in needs of the regions to national and EU level

Regional RTDI governance vis-à-vis national and EU level – ‘horizontal’, trans-regional effect – self organising capacity: potentially higher implementation impact and efficiency

o can react more rapidly

o can proactively bring all relevant stakeholders together

o can tailor (macro) measures better to regional / institutional needs (smart local intermediaries, knowledge-brokers)



Measures for Staying Competitive

Supporting changes in Innovation Systems (IS):o Stimulate knowledge generation, diffusion, absorptiono Develop new understanding of IS (actors, outreach, …)o More multifaceted ‘innovation’ policy (trans-policy-fields, -sectoral, -

governance levels, -national, …)

Adapting Framework Conditions (soft and hard):

o Competencies and values, entrepreneurship culture, technical standards, legal and work regulations, institutional & social capital, ….

Using more Strategic Policy Intelligence (SPI) more intelligently:o Strategic analyses of (trans-)national / regional / sectoral innovation

systems and processeso Benchmarking, policy monitoring & evaluationo Technology Foresight & Assessment, inclusive policy design



Strategic Policy Intelligence (SPI)

The set of activities to search, process, diffuse & protect information in order to make it available to the right persons at the right time,so that they can take the right decisions.

Related to Research & Innovation (RTDI) policies this includes such policy support instruments as foresight & technology assessment, monitoring, benchmarking, regional innovation auditing, strategic evaluation, ….

(S&T) ForesightVision & Priorities

Implementation/MonitoringResults /Changes

Strategic Evaluation,(Innov) Audits,Benchmarking

Recommendations

Innov&Tech AssessmentEx-ante Evaluation

Agenda Setting

(STI) RoadmappingDetailing / Focusing

Agendas



Why SPI?Basis for better decisions and investments

(better informed, more clearly based, more broadly based and consensual, more likely on average to be optimum and lower risk)

o early recognition of economic and social opportunities

o early warning against negative impacts

o procedures for mitigating conflicting situations

o reducing costly errors – or costly missed opportunities

o background knowledge for planners & designers, decision aid for technology developers, users, regulators

o contributions to resilient system (improved functionality, consensual co-ordination, policy coherence), socially and environmentally compatible design

attracting more investments also from other sources, incl. FDI



RTDI, SPI, Regional Decision Makers

Tight budgets, pressure to support ‘obvious’ and short-term demands

Taking informed RTDI related decisions needs comprehensive knowledge base and structured stakeholder input

In general, long-term and macro strategies are difficult to translate into day-to-day decision making procedures

Various regions and smaller countries have addressed these issues effectively and used SPI based approaches successfully.

Why not the others?

Is the use of SPI tools too expensive, too complicated, too academic, too different from established & proven procedures?

Are there no understandable & adaptable ‘models’ and guidelines?



RegStrat - A European Consortium



Contributing to Policy Fields of High EU Relevance

Regional actors’ contribution to Lisbon and Barcelona Goals

Regional dimension of FP7

Strategic dimension of CIP

Strategic dimension and RTDI investments of Structural Funds



The RegStrat Project aims to improve (regional) policy design and implementation by supporting regional decision-makers and facilitating the application of Strategic Policy Intelligence

o Foster understanding of SPI Tools

o Supply appropriately processed information

o Design pilot applications to test usability of tools

Ongoing policy learning in practice

Building both on EU and regional knowledge-base

Integrating use of regional, national, EU (ERDF, ESG, FP7, CIP), and FDI support

Contributing to policy fields of high EU and regional relevance

RegStrat Objectives



Regional RTDI Investment Strategies

RegStrat focuses on the intersection of policy research, SPI application and regional development

Bringing together regional stakeholder networks, SPI practitioners, policy researchers

Rationale: with improved decision base, and more innovative & less risky choices, regional actors more confident RTDI-related in investment decisions. More likely to

o allocate own public funds for RTDI-related or –relevant activities (S&T, HE, other policy fields)

o leverage such investments from & in private sector

o attract resources from national and EU (Cohesion, Agriculture, Infrastructure etc), AND from foreign direct investment budgets.


SEZ - STEINBEIS-EUROPA-ZENTRUMRegStrat pilots: SPI tailored to regional

situation

(S&T) ForesightVision & Priorities

Implementation/MonitoringResults /Changes

Strategic Evaluation,(Innov) Audits,Benchmarking

Recommendations

Innov&Tech AssessmentEx-ante Evaluation

Agenda Setting

(STI) RoadmappingDetailing / Focusing

Agendas

dr. guenter clar, © eu - liaison office for research and technology steinbeis - europa - zentrum...

Documents

technology steinbeis

europazentrum rtdi

o adapting eu

europazentrum regions

europazentrum measures

eu liaison office

efficiency o

general o