The meeting started the Wielkopolska process improving effectiveness of policy instruments designed for SMEs implementing the Living Lab approach. The representatives of the Marshal's Office (regional authorities responsible for programming and implementation of SME support policy - mainly Regional Operational Programme), business support organizations (BSO) and local companies exchanged needs and expectations tio with their from different perspectives and worked out the specification for changes. The workshop included a lively discussion on rigidity or flexibility of the programmes and instruments and their capacity to respond to changing SMEs needs.
The participants could also hear from Elżbieta Książek from Poznan Science and Technology Park about the observations and recommendations of peer-review done by ESSPO project partner: Vaido Mikheim from Tartu Science Park (Estonia) who interviewed stakeholders responsible or involved in SME support in Wielkopolska. His key recommendations were:
• establishing regular communication routines between active and willing stakeholders in ecosystem,
• defining by policy owner quality criteria for business development organizations,
• setting up policy instrument for incubation programmes.
The second part of workshop was the group work on finding common policy instruments goals and values. As well as for regional authorities and BSOs the main goal is to enhance companies’ innovativeness and their international activities. From the companies point of view the key point is to have tangible support for entering export markets with a focus on sales and business development rather than soft activities. All the participants agreed that sufficient communication among academia, private sector, public sector and BDO’ and effective regional ecosystem building in Wielkopolska should be the key goal for all the parties.
More specific workshop conclusions:
- Policy instruments should be implemented based on beneficiaries needs.
- There should be deep analysis of the market before and after instruments implementation.
- Programmes should be more flexible and less bureaucratic.
- Upskilling and knowledge exchange programmes are very important for BDOs staff.
According to the participants some of the conclusions are realistic for fulfilling, some of them might need some more time, effort and resources.
The next meeting is scheduled to be held in March. Poznan Science and Technology Park as the organiser and the ESSPO project leader hopes more and more regional stakeholders will be involved in this discussion.
