Action Plan for West-Transdanubia was elaborated with the coordination of Pannon Novum Nonprofit Ltd. in order to promote the intensity of companies’ R&D+I activities and improve the commercial success of public R&D results in the western part of Hungary.
The Action Plan for is covering a broad bandwidth of actions with the aim of direct commercialisation of R&D results and development of an innovation-oriented society as precondition. 2 out of 4 defined actions are dealing with strengthening the collaboration between public RTO/HEI and private businesses: Supporting the university-industry collaboration and innovation vouchers. Innovation voucher targets specifically SMEs that are characterised by lower-than-the average innovation intensity and helps SMEs in access to innovation services outside the company. The new Management Campus building at Szechenyi Istvan University of Györ and the new service portfolio for enterprises makes the research activities and public R&D results more transparent and visible for the target groups. Workshops, trainings and different events will be organized in the co-working spaces for researchers, students and representatives of companies to receive information on public R&D results, define joint R&D+I projects, solve industrial (technological) needs and problems in a joint effort.
3rd Action “Working with schools and students” is fostering collaboration with schools and (university) students to meet needs or challenges of companies and design solutions and innovative projects. 4th Action “Integration of INNOVATION PROFILING into the regional innovation supporting system of West Transdanubia” is aiming at supporting low/medium innovative companies to increase their innovation capacity and at identification of potential new customers for the R&D+I funding scheme.
The Action Plan demonstrates in very impressive way the contribution of the different InnoBridge activities (identified GPs, learnings from Staff Exchanges. Peer Reviews and Study Visits etc.) to each of the 4 elaborated actions. Collaboration between university and large multinational companies in automotive industry is intensive but there is room for improvement in communication and technology transfer between university and SMEs. Szechenyi Istvan University in Győr is working on to create an open collaboration platform based on its industrial relations, experiences, human resources and research infrastructures in order to serve the industrial needs of SMEs and implement effective knowledge and technology transfer. Main take-away from Staff Exchange in Tampere: Kampusareena services towards companies (Kampusklubi, co-working spaces, facilitated innovation process) and Demola / Koklaamo programmes that focus on student projects with industry and community.
InnoBridge project partners and stakeholders confirmed in us that individuals, students, team of students, not only higher education institutes but also primary and secondary schools can open new way for innovation. Part of the Action Plan to create a FabLab (personal digital fabrication) as a great opportunity to boost prototyping among students and encourage entrepreneurship. Organizing workshops with scholars to meet with problems of community and companies, work on projects which help in developing skills important in terms of future.
Implementation of the Action Plan has already started with a wide range of national and regional stakeholders and will be monitored by March 2021. Upon the completion of its implementation it will affect 9.600.000 Euro directly or indirectly from ERDF.
