Over the past 4 years, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and five other regional and local players and an advisory partner have been working together as part of the Next2Met Interreg Europe project, to implement policy solutions aimed at increasing the attractiveness for knowledge, opportunities and capital of territories located close to metropolitan areas.
Below, you will discover the challenges, solutions and results of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in developing digital solutions and strategies to increase the attractiveness of the Midlands region.
Initial challenges
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is situated close to the metropoles of Berlin (DE), Hamburg (DE) and Szczecin (PL), which causes work force, capital and knowledge to drain from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern into the large metropoles.
In order to address the challenge, there are multiple approaches. In one approach, the government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has initiated the “Digital MV”, a network created to connect regional & local players and increase attractiveness of the region. In this network, 6 Digital Innovation Centres are connecting local players in the 6 regions in MV. Furthermore, the county of Vorpommern-Greifswald has developed (with WITENO & PwC) a digitalisation strategy with the aim to become a “smart region”, increasing the attractiveness of the rural county of Vorpommern-Greifswald.
Solution
Drawing on inspiration from the exchange in the Next2Met-project, WITENO suggested to make the Digital MV more internationally active, creating suggestions for internationalization approaches for the Digital MV. The new internationalization approach will be included in the policy framework of the “Digital MV” – the “Digital Agenda” for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. With a joint approach for internationalization, the Digital MV can increase visibility of the region’s advantages and thus increase its attractiveness.
Results
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern now has well-functioning Digital Innovation Centres (stable staff situation, high amount of networking events) and it has been able to organise some workshops on internationalization approach which led to the drafting of suggestion for approach for internationalisation.
For more information please contact: [email protected]
