1. Smart Specialisation:
Enabling ICT to drive
innovation in the EU regions

2. Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS
European Regional Innovation Performance (2009)
Innovation in the EU

3. Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS
We must learn how to innovate new
approaches to innovation!
BCG & Accenture reports,
show that people believe
that innovation is getting
harder
Driven by the recession,
there is a heightened fear of
risk, and this drives people to
safety and the known Freedoms to Innovate are curtailed
Innovation Velocity is slow.
(Loss of momentum)
“The way things were done” is probably
not good enough for the new post-
recession world, where creativity will
make a difference
Enable ICT
for innovating
new approaches
to innovation!
Professor Victor Newman, University of Greenwich

4. Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS
Open Innovation and Collaborative Values
(Moving from the individual to the team)
• We have to move to open innovation models and build new
collaborative value information systems:
 Utilise the influence of social networks and capitalise the power of
crowdsourcing to construct collaborative alliance networks with
complementary strengths.
 Enable mobile technology (telematics, telecoms, mobile apps) to
connect the right people together.
 Use the internet to encourage the participation of many and
constantly enhance the open environment inviting those that can.

5. Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS
Innovative techology can enable new
business models
• “Crowd funding” in the US is a model of open innovation and
collaborative funding.
• Internet users (not funds) support new value projects and ideas.

6. Local
Companies
Colleges
Universities
Cooperatives
Entrepreneur
support
organisations
Research
Centers
HR
Agencies
Banks/Loan
funds
Government
Agencies
(local/regional)
Training
e-learning
centers
Entrepreneurs
Regional Innovation Platform
Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS
Idea
Business
Development
Strategic
Electronic portal and
Web 2.0 collaboration platform
(Integration to other regions)
Region I
Region II Platform
Region III platform
Region IV Platform
Region V platform

7. Regional systems integration
• To integrate all regional entrepreneurial networks into a single
platform, we need four critical sub-networks:
 The Innovation Network: who is bringing innovation into the region, who
is sharing that innovation with others, and who are the people that
entrepreneurs respect as sources of innovation.
 The Collaboration Network: this identifies who has been collaborating
with whom.
 The Sharing Network: who has been mentoring others and sharing
information or resources.
 The Policy Network: this identifies the people who are likely to be the
most influential in policy issues regarding entrepreneur support.
Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS

8. ICT for regional integration
• To support the integration of regional entrepreneurial
networks, we need on every end the following ICT support
systems and actions:
 Innovation databases: Analyse information from entrepreneurs about
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
 E-Learning: setup trainings for entrepreneurs.
 Adequate Communication: Establish reliable systems to support
communication between partners and services and reduce bureaucracy.
 Social Collaboration networks: Implement an uninterruptible flow of
information and enhance collaboration between parties.
 Integration databases: Store and share new ideas, know-how and best
practices among different regions and countries.
 Listen to the feedback, learn and improve the systems continuously.
Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS

9. Thank you for your attention
thanasis.papadimitriou@hepis.gr, thanassisp@gmail.com
http://gr.linkedin.com/in/thanassispapadimitriou

10. The Regional Innovation Platform
• Two main components for the platform:
 A portal, aiming to foster collaborative innovation
 A social network, which enables free exchange of ideas and information
among clusters or virtual communities feeding the innovation process
(think tank). Also exchange proposals and analyse opportunities.
• Overall objectives of the platform:
 The social network will create thematic clusters and put together: actors,
competencies, and stakeholders (industry, research and public admin).
 An end user system which will favor the integration of expertise, and
enable participation, engaging system nodes into establishing the
strategic priorities of the local innovation agenda.
 An „Innovation Observatory‟, to avoid replication of activities and double
funding, thus make the whole process more efficient;
Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS

11. The Regional Innovation Platform
 A „Technology Scouting Service‟, offering an overview on new available
technologies.
 An „Innovation Funding Advice‟ service, providing news and instructions
about funding opportunities at local, national and European level.
 A Web 2.0 wiki and social forum, where the project concept can be
collaboratively developed.
 A Competency Search Engine, enabling to discover for each project the
best match between needed competencies and profiles across the local
innovation stakeholders.
 Business development services, aimed increase the market impact and
sustainability of new businesses.
Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS

12. The Regional Innovation Platform
Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS
Public Administration
(planning, coordinating,
investing capacity)
Entrepreneur
engagement
(innovative products
& Services)
Regional
Stakeholders
(business/academia)
(innovation policy
process)
Bottom-up „smart specialization‟, whereby regional priorities can be determined
by the willingness of local actors to join forces and strive for common goals.

13. Horizon 2020
 Recently, the academic and political debate on Regional policy in support
to EU2020 innovation targets has put in evidence the risk of
ineffectiveness related to an excess of imitation and duplication across
policies, programs and instruments.
 This is more than a „No one size fits all‟ acknowledgment: policy mixes
need to recognize and respect territorial needs and diversities, but
also specialize in a „smart‟ way – by identifying critical masses or
bottlenecks and concentrating resources on key priorities.
 Regions that are targeting the same kind of specialization should
cooperate and coordinate their funding initiatives to allow for the
emergence of cross-national agglomerations, able to attract further
R&D and innovation capacities from foreign countries.
Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS

14. Horizon 2020
• European regions may run a twofold risk:
 First, of weakening available resources (particularly from Structural
Funds) on a generic, non-sector-specific promotion of innovation, which
ultimately prevents the formation or the strengthening of business
agglomerates of European value.
 Second, clusters will never reach worldwide excellence, instead of
supporting cross-border, cross-cluster collaborations for the design and
development of applications in one or several domains.
Thanassis Papadimitriou, HePIS