The Winter School on Smart Specialisation for competitiveness, sustainability and resilient local development, organised from February 28th to March 2nd in Trento (Italy), aimed at allowing participants to get a better understanding of local development challenges as well as meet and learn from their peers to establish new working relationships.
EURADA collaborated with OECD Trento Centre and Trentino Sviluppo, the regional development agency operating on the territory, resulting in a successful event that was attended by 25 people, ranging from students to officers working for national and regional Development Agencies committed to local development, innovation, development and implementation of EU R&I, and Cohesion policy. The participants came from 11 different European countries. The EURADA network was represented by 9 participants coming from 5 Regional Development Agencies: Gozo Regional Development Authority, Razvojna Agencija Zagreb, Regional Development Agency SIMORA, Oost NL and ADR Nord-Vest Romania.
The event’s focus on Smart Specialisation for competitiveness, sustainability and resilient local development allowed EURADA and the other organisers to combine the three-day training presentations with a hands-on and practice-oriented approach, interactive sessions, discussions, group exercises and field visits in Trentino, which helped participants to comprehend better the challenges and opportunities for local development.
The first day explored the Innovation ecosystem in Trentino concentrating on entrepreneurship, start-ups and SMEs scaling up. Some presentations were given by local experts in the morning to set the field to two site visits. CLab Trento, the interdepartmental laboratory of the University of Trento, an aggregator of advanced educational pathways that aims at promoting creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and growth of new businesses in the Province of Trentino, opened its doors. The participants were welcomed by the Head of the Contamination Lab Alessandro Rossi, who explained specifically the work of the centre and how it is essential to the development of the local business fabric. In the late afternoon, the Chief Strategy Officer for European Affairs at Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK), Fabio Pianesi, presented FBK as a scientific and technological hub, its premises and platforms hosting a lively ecosystem of co-located ventures, spin-offs, projects and training opportunities.
The second day challenged participants around the topic of Smart Specialisation in practice. Site visits were also the stars of the second day of our winter school, which began at Progetto Manifattura premises, a historic tobacco facility transformed into an innovation hub for green building, renewable energy, and environmental technology. The project is the premier green technology partner in Italy, offering turnkey business solutions, a supportive environment, and excellent connections to northeast Italy and Europe.
The 25 participants and the organisers then moved to Polo Meccatronica, the Trentivo Sviluppo headquarter, where Karel Herman Haegeman from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission give a presentation on the future of Smart Specialisation in Europe assessing the seven S3 enabling conditions for 2021-2027 and the related policy objectives. Immediately after, the RIS3 of the Trentino region was also presented generating lots of questions and curiosity from the audience.
The third and last day revolved around instruments and policies to boost local competitiveness. Public policy can play an important role in steering the large-scale diffusion of teleworking. Various communities around the world are experimenting with innovative solutions. Opportunities and challenges for a smooth transition to an ever more virtual work environment have been explored in this session in view of several societal objectives, including an improvement in living standards, territorial cohesion and competitiveness. As a part of the group exercise, the participants reflected upon the role of Development Agencies in the near future.
The participants agreed that traditional approaches to innovation policy have not provided a strong rationale for policies that foster socially and politically desirable transformative change processes. In consequence, innovation policies that respond solely to market failure to stimulate growth and competitiveness or address deficiencies at the innovation system level are no longer sufficient.
The event was a big success that deserves to be repeated in future years. EURADA challenged itself to organise something new and exciting that would be an opportunity for exchange and enrichment from which it gained new professional contacts and friends.
The second edition of the EURADA winter school in February-March 2024 is in the process of being organised. One of the participants already offered herself/himself to host us to further continue this process of sharing knowledge and best practices among regional development agencies.
Check here a small video (in Italian) that summarises the experience. Stay tuned for future initiatives!
