The 4th RSG meeting was held with great success at the Regional Council of Western Greece in Patras, on Friday 25/05/2018.
The meeting was welcomed by the Regional Governor of Western Greece Mr. Apostolos Katsifaras and the Deputy Regional Governor of Entrepreneurship and Development Mr Kostas Karpeta, who declared their full support to the project's objectives. Mr. Katsifaras stressed that there are inhibiting factors such as the problematic concept of innovation and its integration and the lack of real and effective decentralization, which should be overcome. He emphasised on the good practices of other European countries that can be our guide as well as the local comparative advantage, given the existence of a large cultural infrastructure and many low-profile shapes that need to be activated. The Project Team, represented by Mr. Papaspyrou, presented the project and stressed the importance of the presence of the invited speakers. The objective is to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector to achieve their growth and internationalization. He concluded with the announcement of a forthcoming Call for Proposals in the Creative Industry sector, amounting to € 10 million, which is expected to be pre-published shortly.
The stakeholders had the opportunity to enjoy an excellent presentation on the national - regional synergies in research and technology by Dr. Agni Spilioti, Head of Planning and Programming of Policies & Actions of General Secretariat for Research and Technology. She presented the results of their action to support national research infrastructures where the approved budget for the Region of Western Greece amounts to € 3,8 million. Additionally, the results of the state aid actions and especially that of the "RESEARCH-CREATE-INNOVATE" action were presented, in which the RWG owns 8.26% of the approved budget, meaning that research entities and enterprises of the RWG will be financed with more than € 30 million. Mr. Antonis Economou, Director of INNOVATHENS, analysed as a good practice the example of the "INNOVATHENS" node of the Technopolis of the Municipality of Athens. The importance of cooperation between people from different fields, synergy with major technology companies and high technology networks and the practical support of all the parties involved has been highlighted. He identified the triple helix: Public - Education - Enterprise as a key element of success and emphasized the need for interconnections with similar hubs around the world, the financial environment (VC) and entrepreneurship. Dr. Iphigenia Stamelou, on behalf of the GSRT, made an informative presentation on the implementation of the business discovery and opportunity discovery process to highlight the thematic priorities of the National Strategy of Smart Specialization in the field of "Tourism - Culture & Creative Industries". The process of prioritizing the RTD sector has been thoroughly analysed to provide a road map for project needs.
The meeting closed with an open discussion with all the attendees, with Mr. Ganos, representative of the Municipality of Patras, to place great emphasis on the need for indicators to measure results to be able to build realistic and efficient policies. Mr. Papachristopoulos, with characteristic examples, emphasized the necessity of investing in the intangible culture, which was supported by both Mr. Mallias, the representative of the Institution Kostis Palamas and Mr. Konstantopoulos, representative of the International Olympia Film Festival for children and young people.
