Earlier this week 250 participants representing 150 different clusters from 30 European countries met in Warsaw for the 4th Cluster Matchmaking Conference The annual cluster-to-cluster matchmaking conference provides a forum for developing ideas for international collaboration. The participants found the keynotes and learnings from other clusters inspirational. Nevertheless, as with the previous three conferences, there was a general agreement that matchmaking is a very important part of the event. Fruitful meetings The matchmaking sessions are like speed dating, where participants have 20 minutes to find out if they have something interesting to offer each other. In three hours there were 500 meetings. And many of them were afterwards referred to as fruitful. Two clusters, AgroBioCluster/UNIMOS and Latvian Food Products Quality… Read more
Putting the EUSBSR into Practice – Policy Area Innovation launch Strategy Guide, 2016 – 2020 On behalf of policy area innovation, we are pleased to share with you the strategy guide, 2016 – 2020, which aims to put the EUSBSR Action Plan into practice within the policy area of innovation. As defined by the Action Plan of the EUSBSR, policy area Innovation is essentially about intelligently combining the regional strengths, competences, research and development (R&D) and players of the entire Baltic Sea Region. The aim of this strategy guide is to provide policymakers and innovation actors with guidance and inspiration for how to best utilize the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region so as to effectively achieve EU and… Read more
The 7th Strategy Forum of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region will take place in Stockholm, november 2016. Part of the forum will focus on the vibrant scene of digital startups in the Baltic Sea Region. The founder of Skype and Atomico, Mr. Nicklas Zennström is confirmed for a Main Session on a Digital Market in the Baltic Sea Region. IT Minister from Norway, Jan Tore Sanner is also one of the confirmed panelists. There are several vibrant startup scenes emerging and growing in several cities in the Baltic Sea Region and the startups provide the igniting spark to digital growth in many sectors. These urban setup scenes often lie far apart and can be separated by national borders. This… Read more
“Co-operation between the Nordic and Baltic regions is a win-win situation.” These were the words of the Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers, Dagfinn Høybråten, at a seminar in Copenhagen to celebrate 25 years of co-operation between the Nordic and Baltic regions. Høybråten highlighted the ongoing co-operation in innovation through the BSR Stars programme and stressed that the regions’ cultural and geographical similarities are the cornerstone of successful co-operation between Nordic and Baltic organisations and Companies. Read the full article here.
Late last week, 63 participants from 13 countries gathered in Riga for a capacity building workshop on cluster internationalisation. The workshop brought together cluster managers, representatives from Enterprise Europe Network, and policymakers from around the Baltic Sea Region to learn from each other in an interactive setting. Participants discussed key questions from the “Strategic Cluster Internationalisation” framework, got inspiration from several practical examples, and debated a number of boosters and blockers to cluster internationalisation. The workshop is one of this year’s Innovation Express activities – brought to clusters from BSR Stars. As part of this year’s Innovation Express activities (coordinated by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation), Cluster Excellence Denmark and The Ministry of Economics of Latvia organised… Read more
We are now only 10 days away from the stakeholder conference on Smart Specialization Strategies - the macroregional perspective, and we look very much forward to seeing you all for a day of interesting and timely workshops on the many aspect of smart specialization strategies. Please have a look at the updated program here.
Based on positive experience with previous Innovation Express calls in 2013, 2014 and 2015, again this year BSR Stars launches a transnational call to support the internationalisation of SMEs - in 2016 with participation from the German Brandenburg region as special “cooperation partner”! The Innovation Express call is open between 2 May – 31 October 2016. Details on eligible applicants, application procedures, etc. are available in the call text on the Innovation Express webpage. Applications should be submitted via a unique, common online application portal. You can also register to attend this year’s cluster-to-cluster conference and matchmaking event “Internationalisation the Strategic Way” to be held in Warsaw 19-20 September at Innovation Express Cluster Matchmaking Conference 2016.
BSR Stars has developed into a support vessel for development of activities helping the Policy Area Innovation being implemented according to the Action Plan, and the upcoming Strategic Action Plan expected to be launched in July 2016. At this stage, BSR Stars is working with a number of project initiatives; both new Flagships as well as projects. The BSR Stars Secretariat team work jointly and share project ideas being developed at our weekly meeting, to ensure input by many Secretariat members as part of the project feedback. Read more in our latest newsletter
The BSR Innovation Express call (open between 1 May – 30 October 2015) attracted 50 applications from cluster organisations and business networks in the six funding and extended partner countries. Of these, 40 have been approved – directly engaging 1186 SMEs in international innovation collaboration activities. Funding Partner Country Applications Received Approved Projects Denmark 27 23 Iceland 3 2 Lithuania 1 1 Norway 12 5 Sweden 11 5 Catalonia, Spain 4 4 23 applicants have teamed up in 10 joint projects (with 2 or more partners receiving funding). In addition to these joint projects, 17 more projects have been approved – resulting in a total of 27 new international collaboration projects (see overview of IE projects 2015). Project partners… Read more
The recent cluster-to-cluster matchmaking conference provided a forum for developing ideas for international collaboration. The Innovation Express call now provides an opportunity to act on these ideas for “innovative combinations” of clusters. The 3rd Cluster Matchmaking Conference “Innovation by Combination” (held in Copenhagen 17-18 September) gathered nearly 300 participants representing more than 150 clusters from 32 countries. And with 544 cluster-to-cluster matchmaking meetings, it became the biggest cluster matchmaking event so far. (See additional information about the conference including presentations and a video summary here.) Many ideas for cluster collaboration were developed at this event, and the Innovation Express call provides an opportunity to initiate action. Innovation Express is a joint call for proposals implemented within the framework of the… Read more