Home » about Europe INNOVA Annual Partnering Event 2008

Pictures

Extranet Login

Extranet Login

Forgot your password?

Discussion Forum

Discussion Forum

Publications and Tools

Publications

3rd Europe INNOVA Annual Partnering Event & Thematic Workshop on Clusters

Print

Europe INNOVA stakeholders build bridges of innovation in Budapest

Inspired by glorious spring weather and a classy historical venue (Festetics Palace of the Andrassy Gyula University) in the heart of Budapest, more than 150 Europe INNOVA stakeholders came together during the 3rd Annual Partnering Event for two days of interaction and brainstorming on how to take forward the existing Europe INNOVA networks and draw lessons for the recently or to be launched Europe INNOVA platforms. At the same time, the event proved to be an excellent opportunity to network with the Hungarian innovation community and many of its members expressed interest to join the Europe INNOVA family.


In his welcome address, Dr Ferenc Partos, President of the National Office for Research and Technology (NKTH), underlined that the Hungarian authorities were fully committed to the Lisbon objectives but that high expectations for change towards a more innovation intensive economy have to contend with society's willingness and capacity to adapt.


Hungary, like other new Member States, has to balance these expectations with the reality of low entrepreneurial spirit, dominance of the economy by multinational firms, low labour mobility and skills gaps, etc. Hungarian policy priorities match well with those promoted by Europe INNOVA as they centre on public-private partnerships supporting "high-tech" platforms and "low tech" clusters.
An illustration of this was given by Norbert Grasselli (managing director, INNOVA Eszak-alfold Regional Innovation Agency) who explored the case of public-private partnerships in Debrecen (Eastern Hungary), where partners from the business sector, universities and local authorities have been working to develop new services in support of innovation, leading to 10 spin-offs and a range of new products in only three years.

Reka Hosszu, European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry, underlined that the results of Europe INNOVA to date were highly encouraging and that beyond the results of the individual projects and networks, the real success of the last three years had been the consolidation of an "innovation community". The focus was now on moving from "networking" to partnerships; from studies and exchange of good practice to joint development of tools and instruments and "better practice".

These keynote presentations provided a framework for intensive roundtable discussions where participants were invited to put themselves in the shoes of "citizens", public officials, business people, and "workers" to explore what innovation means, and how innovation stakeholders could develop new tools or identify barriers and drivers to innovation in society that could hinder implementation of innovation policy. As an example, the citizens' roundtable considered the tension between the consumer and the concerned citizen (e.g. pre-packaged foods facilitate citizen's lives by creating time but often are pointed to as a source of obesity, a real issue for society). How to integrate such societal concerns with the factors driving innovation in enterprises is a real challenge for policy, both in the design and implementation phases.

Following the round tables, a one-hour session before lunch on exit strategies of the current networks provided three different models of how to further exploit and maintain activities of the Europe INNOVA networks. Options explored by the networks include 'exploiting' (if not commercialising) the tools developed, creation of not-for-profit permanent organisations representing trans-European clusters, transferring tools to national innovation agencies, etc.

After time for "partnering" over lunch, the event continued with "innovation tours" to three Hungarian success stories including Kitchen Budapest (http://www.kitchenbudapest.hu/en), Organica Ecotechnologies (http://www.organica.hu/) and BME Innovation and Knowledge Centre of Information Technology at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (http://www.it2.bme.hu/). Participants on the tours were asked to "capture an idea" to take home with them and apply in their own context.


After the tours, a "poster session" enabled each of the Europe INNOVA networks to showcase results to date, follow-on activities, etc. and discuss ideas with their peers. Participants threw themselves into this session with gusto and many options for partnering across the existing networks were identified.

Placing the themes discussed during the day in a broader context, Elizabeth Chell, professor of entrepreneurship at Kingston University in the UK, explored the factors impinging on society's acceptance of innovation and highlighted that our understanding of what is innovation and where it occurs needs to be much broader. Multi-disciplinary approaches to innovation are required where public-private partners can combine to create new spaces for novel innovation. Education and early identification of young innovators are critical elements in fostering society's acceptance of innovation; a message strongly in line with the European Commission's proposal to promote 2009 as the European Year of Innovation and Creativity.

In his final words, Reinhard Buscher, European Commission, Head of the Support for Innovation unit at DG Enterprise and Industry, stressed that the future of Europe INNOVA is dependent on an even higher degree of professionalism of the "innovation community" and on the extent to which the tools developed through the networks and platforms were directly relevant for innovation agencies in delivering services to enterprises.


Thematic Workshop on Clusters

A Thematic Workshop was organised during the second day dedicated to the outcomes and lessons of Europe INNOVA Cluster networks. These networks, which are now reaching their end, can be considered as sectoral pilot projects for cluster policies that span across national and regional boundaries.

The morning session presented the outcomes of all eleven Cluster networks; a variety of approaches and lessons learned were highlighted, discussed and passed on to the European Commission to be taken on board in its policy planning.


The afternoon session reflected cluster managers' experiences in respect to national and European cluster policies. Mr Nikos Pantalos, DG Enterprise and Industry, outlined the European Commission's perspectives for cluster development and was followed by Laszlo Szilagyi, Hungarian Ministry for National Development and Economy, who gave an overview of Hungarian cluster policy cases. An exit strategy example was showcased by Jens Erik Lund from the BSR INNO-Net. The workshop was concluded with the presentation of the European Cluster Observatory by Gφran Lindqvist of Stockholm School of Economics and Kincso Izsak, from DG Enterprise and Industry, followed by an intense discussion on European cluster policies.

The Cluster networks have generated a wealth of experience, which now will be put into practice and given "a further spin" in the upcoming cluster activities, as described in the final words by Reinhard Buscher.

Many thanks should be credited to the NKTH (www.nkth.gov.hu) and the EARFU Eszak-alfoldi Regional Development Agency (www.eszakalfold.hu) for hosting the event, mobilising key Hungarian innovation stakeholders, assuring a seamless infrastructural support and organising impressive side events such as the Official Gala Dinner on the Danube river and the Official Cocktail Opening at the Town hall of Budapest.

More information as presentations, pictures etc. can be found by clicking on the left hand menu.

The Proceedings Report of the 3rd Europe INNOVA Annual Partnering Event and Thematic Workshop will be published in the beginning of July 2008.