Since 1st January 2016, Auvergne and Rhône-Alpes constitute only 1 Region. (Before the territorial reform, they used to be 2 different neighbour Regions among the 22 metropolitan French Regions.)
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is 1 of the 13 administrative regions of France and is composed from 12 County Councils.
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is the 2nd most important French Region (after the Parisian Region), in terms of economy, with major companies like Michelin tires or Schneider Electric. There are 15 clusters in the bigger Region (7 from Auvergne and 10 from Rhône-Alpes).
First industrial region, it is also the 3rd agricultural region and the 1st touristic Region of France.
The territory of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is 70 000 km² wide, representing 13 % of the French metropolitan territory. Its main characteristic is that about 80% of the territory is in a mountainous area, which makes it the biggest mountainous region of Europe. With 3 mountains and 9 natural regional parks, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is very attractive.
With 7,8 Million inhabitants, Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes has 12% of the French population. It is the 10th biggest European region in terms of population.
The Regional Council of Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes is a public body, the regional elected assembly.
It aims at defining the economic development orientations for its territory. The main policies are transports, vocational training and apprenticeship, building and maintenance of high-schools.
Like every other Regions in France, the organization is managing authority for ERDF & ESF 2014-2020.
The Region is involved in ClusteriX 2.0 project because our R&I policy aims in the fields of smart specialization strategy at supporting excellence, research structuration & visibility and supporting socio-economic benefits of research outcomes.
The political instrument targeted is the Regional Operational Programme Auvergne ERDF-ESF 2014-2020; Axis 1: “Reinforce Research, Technological Development and Innovation”; Investment priority 1A: “Enhancing research and innovation infrastructure and capacities to develop R&I excellence and promoting centers of competence”. The instrument can be improved through new projects supported, which contribute to the expansion of the relations between industry & research by creating a trustful and strategic dialogue between them.
The 5 fields of our RIS3 are: Health prevention and patients’ well-being, Sustainable agricultural systems, Sustainable life spaces, Physical and digital traceability and Smart and efficient systems.
The Region must reinforce public investments for research in the fields of the regional specialization, which targets public research labs funding within the RIS3. Their results will strengthen the regional clusters, which are conceived as the catalyst at the crossroad between researchers & industrials, with a long term vision, in order to anticipate innovation.
To implement Auvergne’s RIS3, we created a public-private tool called “La Fabrique”, in the aim of developing at least 10 new cross-cluster, collaborative & innovative projects with a strong structuring impact on the regional economic territory.
