Europe INNOVA - Partnerships for better innovation support

 

At the invitation of the European Centre for Creative Economy (ECCE) representatives from DG Enterprise & Industry visited the Ruhrgebiet to discuss the role of creative industries in reshaping the economy. Fritz Pleitgen, the chief coordinator of the RUHR-2010 Initiative, highlighted the importance of culture as a catalyst for economic change. “Since we became the Cultural Capital of Europe, we feel much more as one region in the Ruhrgebiet”, Mr Pleitgen said. “We need more positive images that communicate Europe’s creative potential to the rest of the world but also more political commitment to shape our future economies based on our cultural strengths”, he added. U Dortmund is such a cultural lighthouse project in the Ruhrgebiet that shall change the image of the region and stimulate urban development. Adolf Winkelmann, a prestigious German filmmaker who is responsible for three innovative film installations at this new centre for art and creativity that will open its doors in October 2010, said that “U Dortmund is for this city what the Eiffel Tower is for Paris.” He is confident that this new centre will attract interest far beyond Dortmund and stimulate the development of creative industries in the city.

The visit also offered the possibility to discuss with regional initiatives and projects the role creative industries could play to rejuvenate the Ruhrgebiet. The Zeche Zollverein was mentioned as a positive example developing new competences in the field of creativity and bringing them under the slogan “Creative industries – Made by Design” also to traditional industries. The main idea is to map creative professions in the city and to bring them together with local enterprises from other business sectors. In this context, Vito Orazem from the Red Dot Design Centre in Essen stated that there was strong empirical evidence of the economic benefits of design. “Companies using design in a strategic manner are more innovative and also more profitable than others”, he said. He offered the Commission’s representatives a book “The Design Value” that resulted from the former PRO INNO Europe® project ADMIRE.

Mette Quinn from DG Enterprise & Industry encouraged the creative industries initiatives in the Ruhrgebiet to participate actively in the forthcoming “European Creative Industries Alliance” that will bring together the most interested regions and stakeholders in support of creative industries in Europe. “We are not necessarily looking for the strongest regions in creative industries as our partners in this initiative but for those who believe strongest in creative industries as our economic future”, she said.

According to Mr Pleitgen, the Ruhrgebiet suffers from an ageing population and a lack of attractiveness for young people. Bringing the “Love Parade” from Berlin to the Ruhrgebiet was considered an important step towards rejuvenating the region. “Nobody could have imagined, at this stage, the fatal accident that happened last Saturday and I sincerely hope that this tragic event will not put into question the role of culture in changing the image of the Ruhrgebiet”, says Reinhard Büscher from DG Enterprise and Industry.

The call for nominations for the Europe INNOVA Best Partnership Award 2010 is now open until 10 September 2010.

The Best Partnership Award will be given to the Europe INNOVA partnership that is found to be making the most efforts in raising public awareness and visibility for its activities within, as well as outside, the Europe INNOVA initiative.

Should you be interested in nominating your partnership for the award, please click here to download the nomination form.

The nomination form should be sent by Friday, 10 September 2010, at the very latest, to entr-europe-innova@ec.europa.eu

The award will be presented to the winning partnership at the Europe INNOVA Conference in Liège, during the official dinner on Thursday, 28 October 2010.

 

J.C Marcourt and M. Sepi 

On 2 July 2010, as part of the Belgian Presidency of the EU, a conference entitled ‘Innovation and Enterprise - The Role of Socio-Economic Players’ took place in the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). The event was organised by EESC in collaboration with the Cabinet of Jean-Claude Marcourt, Vice-President and Minister for Economic Affairs, SMEs, External Trade and New Technologies of the Walloon Regional Government. One of the aims of the conference was to prepare the work of the informal Council of Ministers of Industry and Research, which will be held on 14, 15 and 16 July 2010.
The Belgian Consultative Committees that operate at the federal level and also in the three regions of Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels Capital, presented their analyses of, and recommendations on, the four main topics addressed during the conference:

• European R&D and innovation programmes – responding to societal challenges;
• Making better use of R&D research results;
• The process of opening up to non-technical innovation; and
• Clusters.

In his opening speech, Mari Sepi, President of the EESC, underlined that, although statistics tended to indicate an economic recovery, for enterprises this recovery was not yet tangible. “The money is there but it doesn’t get through” he stated and added that “it is crucial to fix the flow of capital and make it available to SMEs.”
Jean-Claude Marcourt then highlighted the current importance of the social dialogue and the role that EESC could play. “Nowadays, we know innovation is not so much invention or discovery, but rather transformation of opportunities into new ideas, and exploitation of change as opportunity,” he said. This implied that aspects of innovation were non-technological and were not driven purely by an R&D perspective. In this sense, innovation contributes to the transformation of not only the European economy but also European society, particularly as it is now facing challenges such as climate change and an ageing population. The Minister, who is now leading the Competitiveness Council during the six-month Belgian Presidency, concluded by calling for an eco-efficient economy, specific tools to support innovative SMEs and the continuous development of a clustering policy in Europe.
In providing the point of view of the European Social Partners, Henri Malosse, the EESC Rapporteur for Innovation Policy, welcomed the views expressed by Jean-Claude Marcourt. He stressed the need for innovation to be considered in broader terms than simply those of technological improvement and highlighted the role of SMEs in creating and spreading innovation. He also indicated the need to integrate innovation as a horizontal component within all aspects of policy-making
The four topics of the conference that are outlined above were addressed in dedicated sessions and the following ideas were the most important to emerge from these discussions:

• The need for a European patent system;
• The need to decompartmentalise the work of universities and enterprises;
• The key role of clusters and, in particular, the added value that lies in inter-clustering;
• The need for the development of an innovation culture – including both entrepreneurship and risk management; and finally
• The importance of evaluating previous and on-going policies in order to improve the design of future policies.