Basque Country's Innobasque agency for innovation will head a million euro project launched by the European Commission to improve the efficiency of innovation policies focusing on advanced manufacturing. A consortium has been set up to this end with the participation of the Basque Government, Wales (United Kingdom), Piamonte (Italy) and Lithuania, with the collaboration of Orkestra, the Basque Institute for Competitiveness.
The duration of the Interreg Manumix Europe project will be 4 years (2017-2020), during which it will prepare mechanisms for combined assessment of European R&D&i programs and policies centred on advanced manufacturing in the regions taking part in the consortium. The European Commission and several European governments and agencies, such as the OCDE, have insisted on the need to improve the efficiency of these policies via a combined assessment.
In the European Union industry currently accounts for 15% of GNP, while the goal is to reach 20% in 2020. The first step taken by Interreg Manumix Europe will be an initial analysis of advanced manufacturing in the four European regions mentioned above, which will be prepared by Orkestra. From that point on, the project will be developed in two phases. During the first two-year phase, the various participants will conduct in-depth studies and assessments of current policies, giving way to the second phase (2019 and 2020), during which they will begin to apply the subsequent action plans.
Representatives of the participants involved -regional governments and their innovation agencies- will meet at regular intervals to make progress in this area. The first of these conferences will take place in Bilbao on the 17th, 18th and 19th of May, with the participation of more than 80 institutional representatives and experts from Lithuania, Wales, Piamonte and Euskadi to establish the project's underlying policies.
