1st stage of SCALE UP project on the home stretch
Lubelskie Voivodeship is finalising the first stage of the project “SCALE UP – supporting concentration and robustness of SME’s within the renewed EU industrial policy’’. The assumption of this stage was to familiarise with the experience of partner regions (in the form of study visits) in 4 key areas: new business modes, upgrading cooperation culture between science and business, supporting regional smart specialisations, use and adaptation of new technologies.
Partners from NordHessen: inspiration for the Lubelskie Voivodeship
After exchanging experiences, partners from the Lubelskie Region have unanimously chosen the MoWin Innovation Lab good practice. The elements of which could be implemented in our region thus supporting the development of the Lublin innovation system. The MoWiN project is an example of well working cooperation between experts from the universities and entrepreneurs, who have ready ideas to be implemented but lack a concrete plan of action, evaluation or expertise. The programme includes two types of sessions, one of them concerns technical aspects and the other one includes wider topics, such as obtaining financial support, elaborating the business plan, business profitability, preparing presentation for potential investors, launching a product into the market and many others. The initiative to be finally implemented in our region will be partially modified. It will be combined with the programme (tool) called “Technological Pilot”, which is planned to be implemented in Lubelskie within the programme European Funds for Lubelskie as continuation of the project “Economic Marketing”. “Technological Pilot” plans to support entrepreneurs by involving experts from science institutions of the region. This support can be extended thanks to ideas taken from the MoWiN practice, where experts are engaged not only on the technological level but also in the field of economy, law, marketing or finance. Also, the workshop formula taken from the MoWiN Innovation Lab turned out to be an inspirational solution modifying the current approach to supporting cooperation on the science-business line.
According to the assumption of the SCALE UP project in summer, the Lubelskie Voivodeship elaborated its Regional Action Plan, which includes, among others, implementing the solution in the region. The Action Plan will be executed in the second stage of the project, which will last from February 2022 until the end of 2022.
At present, partners from Lubelskie are conducting discussions with the universities from the region on future cooperation within the above-mentioned programme, in particular involvement of representatives of science institutions (experts) in implementation of the objectives of the social -economic policy of the region within “Technological Pilot” programme. The Lubelskie Region administration and the universities want to combine their potential of knowledge and experience in order to support small and medium size companies. So far, letters of intent have been signed with the University of Life Sciences and the University of Marie-Curie Skłodowska in Lublin. In the future, similar letters of intent will be signed with other universities from the region.
Cooperation on science-business – self-government - is it possible?
Undoubtedly, the added value of the project will be to strengthen the triple helix, i.e. cooperation between partners representing self-government, science and business and building an efficiently functioning ecosystem that includes all these three entities.
