Main EU policies for innovation and regional policy, a state of the situation.

1. Innovation and regional policy
Daniel Gabaldón-Estevan | Moscow 20/05/2016
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences,
University of Valencia- Valencia (ES) - daniel.gabaldon@uv.es
Международная научно-практическая конференция
«Международная и региональная интеграции:
перспективы и вызовы»
Май 20, 2016

2. WelfareInnovation
Innovation system
EU regions
Technological
and advanced
services
providers’
environment
Legal & institutional framework
Scientific environment
Productive
environment
Adapted from Fernández, I., et al. (1996)
National system
of innovation
Regional system
of innovation
(Freeman, 1987;
Lundvall, 1988, 1992; Nelson, 1993)
(Cooke, 1993 and 2001;
Saxenian, 1985; Jaffe et al., 1993)
Competitiveness
Innovation and Innovation Systems

3. 3
Five targets for the EU in 2020

4. 4
Cohesion Policy 11 thematic objectives for 2014-2020

5. EU regional policy founding focus
Research & innovation
Information & communication
technologies
Making small and medium-sized
businesses more competitive
Moving towards a low-carbon
economy
Innovation
[Regional policy is delivered through the European Regional Development
Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund.]
[National and regional authorities, in cooperation with the European
Commission, are responsible for managing the funds from day to day.]

6. EU regional policy founding focus
Research & innovation
Information & communication
technologies
Making small and medium-sized
businesses more competitive
Moving towards a low-carbon
economy
Innovation

7. EU regional policy founding focus
Research & innovation
Information & communication
technologies
Making small and medium-sized
businesses more competitive
Moving towards a low-carbon
economy
Innovation

8. EU regional policy founding focus
Research & innovation
Information & communication
technologies
Making small and medium-sized
businesses more competitive
Moving towards a low-carbon
economy
Innovation

9. EU regional policy founding focus
Research & innovation
Information & communication
technologies
Making small and medium-sized
businesses more competitive
Moving towards a low-carbon
economy
Innovation

10. 10
European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) or Interreg

11. 11
1. Consult the stakeholders. One key task for ‘good
governance’ is to ensure effective prioritisation and agenda
setting for innovation policy.
2. Engage different regional actors in boosting the
innovation systems and strategies and give power to them
by providing them with specific roles and appropriate
resources for action. Define their roles clearly instead of
encouraging competition among them, in particularly
between those belonging to the innovation support
subsystem (e.g. universities, R&D institutes, business
associations, technology centres, financing institutions, etc).
3. Encourage cooperation between the innovation system
actors and promote trust among all of them. Create and
maintain channels and processes for cooperation and
information flow between the different stakeholders.
4. Avoid fragmentation. A combination of top-down and
bottom-up approaches should preferably be applied; the top-
down approach to have a clearer vision of the big picture
and the bottom-up approach to maintain concrete outcomes.

12. 12
5. Improve regional coordination. In order to respond to
greater complexity of the innovation systems, regional
innovation governance becomes the main vehicle to
achieve enhanced coordination.
6. Analyse, plan, finance, create and coordinate. Undertake
analysis together with professional, external experts.
Develop plans for a number of years and provide financing
and stability for the same time horizon. Create suitable,
professional structures for action implementation.
7. Communicate your initiatives. Continuous communication
with the regional innovation system players improves
effectiveness and efficiency of offered innovation support
services.
8. Ensure strong and legitimate leadership. The involvement
of regional and local leaders helps promote strong
innovation awareness, and ability to mobilise local/regional
groups for innovation activities.
9. Seek stability. Effective innovation systems need stable
policies, strategies and resources. Long-term objectives and
core directions should not be put at stake with elections and
new political cycles.

13. 13
10. Facilitate regional empowerment. Involve regional
stakeholders and share tasks with them, engage regional
champions, create consensus, get political backing from
politicians and stakeholders, boost governance by intensive
communication/networking, and deploy as far as
possible suitable financing and human resources.
11. Promote client-oriented innovation systems. The
innovation support needs identification can be done using
tools such as innovation demand surveys, market analyses,
competitive intelligence actions, foresight exercises, among
others.
12. Develop a regional shared vision. A regional vision
statement can galvanise local stakeholders to achieve
defined objectives.
13. Link innovation policy to other policy domains. There is
great potential for linking innovation policy with other policy
areas.
14. Create new bodies to smooth over the development of
innovations systems. Governments may need to remedy
structural deficits by creating new institutions to mediate
between different government fields and priorities.

14. 14
15. Prepare to be part of multilevel governance systems.
More important than undertaking lobbying and “marketing”
activities, regions should make an effort to establish long-
term policies and strategies with demonstrable impact as a
way to better communicate and interact with other
governance levels.
16. Plan the use of EU Structural Funds. Structural Funds
can be a main vehicle for promoting systemic regional
innovation, particularly in less favoured regions.
17. Adopt a “learning innovation policy” approach. Learning,
evaluation and accountability all become more important as
governance structures change and decision making become
more complex.
18. Monitor and evaluate your achievements. Innovation
policies without sound monitoring and evaluation do not
make sense.
19. Benchmark. While economic, institutional and historical
context is very important, it is possible to learn from other
regions and countries.

15. Daniel Gabaldón-Estevan | Moscow 20/05/2016
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences,
University of Valencia- Valencia (ES) - daniel.gabaldon@uv.es
https://uv.academia.edu/DanielGabald%C3%B3nEstevan
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel_Gabaldon-Estevan
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/daniel-gabad%C3%B3n-estevan/23/722/aaa
http://www.slideshare.net/DanielGabaldnEstevan
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2086-5012
http://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-5195-2011
[Thank you for your attention]
Спасибо за внимание