Good practice:

Regional Innovation Fair – InnoMatch

Every year, InnoMatch is the meeting place for innovators, representatives of the European Commission, experts in public policy, innovation, public administration, research and development organizations, universities, clusters, companies and entrepreneurs.
It was first launched in 2013 as part of the InnoBoost project that was developed as a joint initiative of two cross-border organizations with similar goals, in order to promote a solution in response to the weaknesses of the SME sector and to the low level of competitiveness by promoting business-to-business cooperation relations and to enhance business competitiveness through innovation of SMEs in the cross-border Romania - Hungary region.
The main objective of the event is to highlight the success stories existing at regional, national and international level, and to facilitate the contact and dialogue between the regional and international business community.
Each edition brought some innovation and a new approach to the concept. During the years the event included: a regional innovation competition, international brokerage sessions, a scale up competition, workshops and conferences addressing topics such as: automotive, clusters, energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, ICT, intellectual property rights, Horizon 2020, leaders in management, innovative products and services, digitization and competitiveness of companies, ecosystems, synergies, success stories, etc.

It is organized by the Regional Development Agency West. The average financial resources per event were around 15.000 – 20.000 Euro. In the last years, 60 % of this amount was co-financed by the EC through the COSME Program and the rest were own resources of RDA West and Tehimpuls Association.

Since 2013, the event has hosted more than 2000 participants.
Each edition brought novelty and improvement to the concept:
2013: 97 innovative products and good practice demonstrations
2014: Regional Innovation Competition
2015: an international brokerage session with about 150 companies/organizations participating in almost 250 prearranged 1-1 meetings
2017: “ScaleUP” Regional Competition
2019: the thematic approach was “Globally connected ecosystems thriving together”.

The main difficulty, which was treated as a challenge, was to reinvent every year, to create a new format, to bring new and interesting subjects, speakers and opportunities for the audience and participants.

InnoMatch represents a multi-event which can be replicated in other countries, regions or cities focusing on their specific business sectors and needs.
Being an annual event with a different concept every year and addressing a wide range of topics, InnoMatch facilitated the exchange of information between participants and representatives of European organizations, of central and local government, business representatives, representatives of academia and research organizations and other key actors in the innovation field. We also learned how to create synergies with other initiatives and international projects in order to promote business impact. Thus, InnoMatch became the most important international innovation event in the West Region Romania.