LHRS

Name: R&D Industry

Duration: 2011 - 2013

R&D Industry builds upon the Lisbon objectives and focuses on strengthening innovation capacities in the Mediterranean area. The partnership includes 6 partners from 6 countries. According to the European Innovation Scoreboard 2008 (which presented four categories: ‘innovation leaders’, ‘innovation followers’, ‘moderate innovators’ and ‘catching-up countries’), France is an ‘innovation follower’, Slovenia, Spain, Greece and Italy are ‘moderate innovators’. Croatia is not yet included in the analysis. The guidelines suggest that while enhancing the efficiency of the mentioned countries, the output performance may be improved without having to invest more in innovation inputs. The project thus engages university R&D as the input to be exploited.

Envisaged general lines of intervention are the following:
Establishing transnational software platform. It will be set to enable management of research and to support networking, innovation culture and dissemination of relevant information.

Contacting 50 SMEs per partner a year. Individual mediation will be set to connect SMEs and public research institutes on various fields. 50 target SMEs will be chosen per partner a year from public information system and 20 of them will be a subject to scrutiny on their IPR assets, know-how, existing R&D activities/requirements, all this with the intention to seek possible compatibility with public research institutes. Mutual benefit of joint university-industry projects will, with the support of transnational platform, result in a wider impact on economy. With promotion of good practices, successful mediations and outcome benefits market competition between SMEs as well as further R&D development of industry area will be enhanced.

Organizing supportive networking activities. Research breakfasts will offer an opportunity for researchers from public research organizations and industry to exchange up-to-date information on research achievements, technologies and know-how. The Meeting of Researchers and Entrepreneurs will take place once a year to promote good practices and project’s results. The competition ‘The Best Researcher Award’ will call upon university’s industry partners to vote for the Best Researcher.
Capitalization measures will embrace researchers at universities, SMEs, local authorities and other respective bodies and institutions in the region. Nevertheless, innovation is primarily supported on regional level where proximity and individual mediation induce greater effects. Transnational dimension in this respect upgrades regional efforts and widens collaboration opportunities.