Fomento de San Sebastián hosted UpgradeSME project partners in San Sebastian.
Four European organizations Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum (Germany), Business Development Friesland and Municipality of Leeuwarden (the Netherlans) and the Ministry for Economy and Innovation (Hungary) in the framework of the European Project UpgradeSME, Interreg Europe (www.interregeurope.eu/upgradesme) had the opportunity to visit Fomento San Sebastian (Spain) and its Innovation and Talent attraction strategy, as well as the programmes and tools that Fomento San Sebastian as local economic development agency offers to boost SMEs competitiveness.
The UpgradeSME project partners visited for two days the organization Fomento San Sebastian and some of the most innovative initiatives that are being developed by the city, such as Talent House, the residence for researchers that was born to favour the attraction and retention of researchers and highly qualified professionals; Enertic, nearly-zero energy building that comprises the Smart Energy cluster; IKOR, an international company that constitutes a good example of public private partnership to encourage the creation of technology based new business initiatives and a case study in internationalization; and the IoT Space, the Technology Center CEIT-IK4, a programme that encourages the retention of young researchers in the local ecosystem through international opportunities.
The joint staff exchange enabled the participating organizations a more complex learning by sharing local experience in the focus topics.
Photo credit: Fomento San Sebastian
