PA 7: To exploit the full potential of the Region in research and innovation

PA 7: To exploit the full potential of the Region in research and innovation

During the first stage of the implementation process, the Priority Area Coordinators have focused on getting the Flagship Projects started. Regular meetings of the PACs and the Flagship Project Leaders have been successfully organised to facilitate cooperation. So far, the design and planning of the Flagships have to a large extent been funded by existing national or EU sources; however, there is a wish to explore the possibilities of financial engineering. Cooperation between Interact Point Turku, FP 7.2 "Create a Baltic Sea Fund for innovation and research", and the PACs, using BSR Stars as a test case, has already been initiated to explore this possibility.

Flagship Projects 7.1 "BSR Stars", and 7.4 "BSR Health Region" have both developed a well-functioning governance structure, which has allowed the project leaders to formulate their visions and goals, develop strategies and activity plans, take decisions about priorities and initiate new cooperation. The PACs recommend the example of the High Level Group of BSR Stars, with 1-2 representatives from each participating country (BSR EU members, Norway and Iceland), as a good governance structure that could perhaps be useful to other EUSBSR Flagships.

Both FP 7.1 and 7.4 are now in the first phase of implementation. They are co-funded by the Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-13, and 7.4 also from the South Baltic Programme. Both Flagships have applied and/or will apply to other sources of funding to be able to initiate more activities.

Cooperation between the BONUS secretariat and BSR Stars is being developed in order to jointly broaden the BONUS programme to also include clean tech innovation and eco-innovation. The BONUS secretariat has found the BSR Stars to be a suitable partner, facilitating the inclusion of innovation competences and persons responsible for innovation in ministries and innovation agencies of the BSR countries. Without the EUSBSR this had not been possible.

Flagship Project 7.2, led by the Skane Region in Sweden, is now developing its governance structure and work plan. It has already been able to initiate interesting dialogues on future funding within the field of innovation.

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  “Establish a common Baltic Sea Region innovation strategy” which will address the following four challenges: (a) reduce existing innovation barriers, including the harmonisation of different legal and regulatory environments for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), particularly for further developing the Lead Market initiative; (b) facilitate transnational cooperation for the development and commercial exploitation of joint research projects; (c) utilise together the high-level human capital in the Region and promote the mobility of researchers; and (d) jointly develop new and better innovation support instruments, including Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) support. This work will liaise with similar efforts undertaken under the PRO-INNO Europe initiative for the period 2009-12.
  

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  “Improve the exploitation of research through patents” by fostering increased cooperation between national patent authorities in the Baltic Sea Region in providing innovation support facilities. “Sector specialisation among the different authorities” in the Baltic Sea Region and the ability to assist on applications made to other Baltic Sea Region countries and to the European Patent Office (EPO) are ideas that could be part of such cooperation. Support should be provided to SMEs, individual inventors and public research organisations to integrate IPR into their business strategies.
  

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  7.1. “Develop a Baltic Sea Region Programme for Innovation, Clusters and SME Networks”. The concrete objective is to foster R&D and business-related transnational collaboration covering innovation systems, clusters and SME networks, in order to strengthen economic growth in the whole Baltic Sea Region. The Programme will establish "a new Baltic Sea Region brand", building on "smartness", research, innovation and cooperation, leading to capacity-building, stronger international competitiveness, increased foreign investments and world-class actors in some strategic areas. The Programme can be built upon the results and recommendations of the BSR-Network INNO-Net project, funded under the PRO INNO Europe initiative. The objective is to improve Baltic Sea Region competitiveness and innovation through transnational cluster cooperation both at policy and business level by mobilising cluster organisations, national or regional programmes and funds. Activities under this Baltic Sea Region programme will also include the development of a "Baltic Sea Region" method for better exploiting small business networks. Due to the importance of the maritime economy for the Region, maritime clusters will be promoted in order to link them to knowledge networks and to exchange best practices on the establishment of cluster organisations. In addition, an objective is to “develop a regional foresight programme”, which will help with identifying desirable directions of cooperation in R&D and innovation. (Lead: Sweden and Lithuania; Deadline for progress review: to be determined) FAST TRACK
  

The rationale behind BSR STARS is to increase innovation capacity by creating larger critical mass of R&I resources, creating a larger home market for businesses (especially for SMEs) and developing complementary competencies for new types of collaboration.

By linking and deploying the whole resource base of the BSR, the BSR STARS is aimed at shaping, expanding and integrating the market space and the resource base of the Region. The BSR STARS will develop collaboration for innovation work, ensuring it attracts other strong cooperation milieus worldwide. The BSR STARS will introduce systemic ways of working together.

The BSR Stars programme, including strategy and activity plans for 2011-20, has been developed and approved by all 10 countries represented in the BSR Stars High Level Group (BSR EU members, Norway and Iceland). The governance structure of BSR Stars, with a High Level Group with representatives from ministries and innovation agencies in 10 countries, has proven to work well and created a platform for shared strategic actions in the area of innovation. The operational part, with three taskforces, has developed the action plan, but not yet started to implement the activities.

A project called Stardust was approved for co-funding by the BSR programme 2007-13 in September 2010. More than 60 partners / associated partners from 10 countries are involved in Stardust. This project will test new instruments and tools for transnational cooperation in four different thematic areas: clean tech, health, telecommunication and sustainable transport. Five different projects will develop strategies to obtain global leading positions in their respective field.

Finland has allocated recourses from national funds to two projects connected with BSR Stars, one is a food consortium between Finland, Sweden, Poland, Iceland, Denmark and Estonia and the other is the health project within Stardust.

BSR Stars is also a test case for FP 7.2 in its work to propose more efficient models for funding transnational cooperation on innovation. It is hoped that this work will influence the next EU budget period 2014-20.

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  7.2. “Create a Baltic Sea Fund for Innovation and Research”. The aim is to develop financial instruments that promote transnational and transregional innovation and research focussing on the specific strengths of the Baltic Sea Region. This will be achieved by using both tested and successful financial models as well as by developing new ones that will support the coordination of existing funding (2007-13) as well as future funding (2014-onwards) for research, development and innovation at the EU, national and regional levels, as well as private funding. (Lead: Region Skåne. Deadline for finalisation: to be determined)
  

The Flagship is in the phase of collecting information on obstacles and opportunities related to the existing financial structure for the implementation of Flagship Projects within EUSBSR PA 7. This work is pursued in close cooperation with the Flagship 7.1.

During 2010, the Lead Partner of the project investigated the financial conditions for the Flagship itself and found the right partners in the project. The managing phase of the Flagship was expected to be completed by June 2011.

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  7.3. “Develop a common Baltic Sea Region strategy to promote services innovation”. This will have three main objectives: (a) to collect better statistical data from Baltic Sea Region countries to analyse the current status and potential of innovation in the sector of knowledge-intensive services; (b) to identify the scope and objectives for transnational cooperation between clusters operating in the service sub-sectors such as ICT, creative industries and the cultural sector in general, eco/green-innovation and energy; and (c) to improve the framework conditions that are needed to support such cluster cooperation in the domain of services in a sustainable way, as well as to facilitate the internationalisation of high-growth service businesses. This work will liaise with relevant EU INNO-Net policy projects funded under the PRO INNO Europe initiative for the period 2009-12. (Lead: Lithuania and Finland; Deadline for progress review: to be determined)
  

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  7.4. “Set up cross-sectoral reference projects for innovation in health and life sciences”: The promotion of public health on a high level and the exploitation of modern life sciences can be regarded as prerequisites for the Baltic Sea Region becoming a globally leading and prosperous "Health Region". Furthermore, the demographic challenges can only be met with innovations in science, technology and social science. The ScanBalt BioRegion, today one of Europe's leading cluster collaborations, introduced the basic principles of sustainability in 2004 within all fields of life sciences whether health, energy, nutrition, or environmental life sciences. The Baltic Sea Region can in this sense be regarded as a model for providing the basis for a knowledge-based economy and for implementing a shared strategy together in a sustainable way in a broad spectrum of activities. (Lead: Lithuanian Biotechnology Association and BioCon Valley® GmbH, Greifswald (Germany); Deadline for progress review: to be determined)
  

The ScanBalt Health Region (SBHR) serves as an umbrella for a multitude of coordinated activities applying shared visions and values for the development of the Region and utilising a common communication and coordination structure. It promotes a bottom-up approach combined with a top-down advisory structure, which has been developed, tested and applied for the ScanBalt BioRegion since 2001. The SBHR Modus operandi is the result of intense dialogue and consultation with key stakeholders throughout the BSR.

The ScanBalt Health Region has published two position papers: in February 2011 “Healthy Ageing: From biological fundamentals to clinical solutions“, and in March 2011 “EU Cohesion policies and the importance of macro-regions and regional clusters for smart growth and smart specialisation”. The ScanBalt Forum “Towards balanced regional development and smart specialisation between clusters” will be organised on 21-24 September 2011, where discussion, reporting and coordination on the ScanBalt Health Region will be a major topic.

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  7.5. “Setting up a Baltic Science Link”. Research infrastructure is important for a region that aims to be at the forefront of research and innovation. The Baltic Sea Region has several important existing infrastructure installations (the high-energy PETRA-III storage ring at the German Synchrotron Research Centre in Hamburg; the European X-Ray Laser project XFEL in Schleswig-Holstein; the MAXIV, Synchrotron Radiation Research, Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Physics lab in Lund) and is hoping for support for further ones like the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund²³. This infrastructure should be used optimally to strengthen the scientific capability and competitiveness as well as the attractiveness of the Region. This could be accomplished by building a strong network between universities, research institutes and industries in the Region, i.e. the Baltic Science Link. Already strong research fields in the Region – life sciences and material technologies – would form the core of these scientific clusters. (Lead: Sweden: Swedish Research Council; Deadline for progress review: to be determined)
  

The project today is a cooperation between DESY/Hamburg and the Swedish Research Council, and there are several sub-projects on the way. The main activities are currently the sub-projects Science Link (SL) and Baltic Science Link 1 (BSL 1), and overall coordination. Science Link is the precursor project, mainly aimed at industrial users of the research infrastructures, while Baltic Science Link 1 is aimed at the build-up of academic users and a transnational access programme. Both sub-projects are awaiting funding decisions.

The mapping, which is and will continue to be part of the coordination activities, needs to be continued as there are still areas which are not clear and contact that needs to be made. For example, the relationship has to be clarified with existing projects/networks that have similar goals, such as the existing network of academics within the macro-region.