Policy Learning Event on Research & Innovation and SME Competitiveness in Milano
The Joint Secretariat has invited all projects related to SME Competitiveness to participate at the Policy Learning Event on Research & Innovation on the 20th October in Milano.
The general goal of this event was how to find common objectives and how to remove obstacles to foster SMEs competitiveness, especially by dealing with innovation.
After a joint welcome and plenary session, the participants have been divided into three breakout sessions. Christina Koch, leader of the project Regional Creative Industries Alliance (RCIA) has been invited to present at the breakout session on Creative and Cultural Industries.
The Creative and Cultural Industry (CCI) knows a significant growth due to the development of digital economy, the potential of innovation and the interest from the public for this activity. Cinzia Lagioia and Alessandro Chiesa have given a general overview to the statistic and to the peculiarities of CCI first. Afterwards two Interreg Europe projects focusing on CCI were invited to give an insight to their project, especially focusing on their objectives & challenges. Monika Ptak-Kruszelnicka has given an insight to the Design4Innovation project, followed by a presentation of Christina Koch talking about RCIA.
After presenting the general goals of RCIA Christina put a special focus on talking about the objectives and challenges for policy instruments, starting with showing a list of the objectives for policy instruments for all involved regions. The main challenge that all regions are confronted with is the question on how to foster innovation within or through CCI. Austria for example sees a huge growth potential through enhancing intersectorial cooperation between CCI and other sectors like the old economy. Other regions would like to support the business skills and the financial accessibility to for CCI. With the support and through exchange of experience of the other involved project regions, RCIA is thriving to work on the challenge of boosting the overall regional economy using the transformative power of CCI.
The presentations were followed by a fruitful discussion with the participants of the Creative Industries breakout session, which was then closed by a joint wrap up and concluding remarks with all participants of the Policy Learning Event on Research & Innovation, summing up the main topics of discussion of all breakout sessions.
