23 May 2017

Manumix team WEB

Orkestra, as an agent of change to boost the competitiveness of the Basque Country and a reference in the study of competitiveness and territorial development, works actively in the development of its capacities in the European sphere thanks to the support of European Structural and Investment Funds for the period 2014-2020 of the European Union cohesion policy.

Thus, last week the institute participated in various meetings to promote interregional cooperation:

The first began on Wednesday, May 17 in the  Euskalduna, in a session led by the  Basque Government in which a hundred or so institutional decision-makers from 20 European regions, and from the  European Commission, gathered to improve  R+D+i policies in order to reinforce advanced manufacturing, one of the priorities of the Basque Country’s  smart specialisation strategy.

The meeting revolved around three European projects: Manumix, S34Growth and Manunet:

Orkestra participates as consulting partner in the Manumix Project (link a la web), led by Innobasque and in which the Basque Government and the regions of Piamonte, Wales and Lithuania participate. The goal of the project is to reinforce and improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the combination of regional innovation policies in advanced manufacturing via policy assessment and learning. At this first meeting of the partners, whose working sessions lasted two days plus the opening session in the Euskalduna, Orkestra presented the preliminary results of the comparative study of the four participating regions and the concepts and frameworks regarding the innovation policy mix which will serve as a basis for interregional learning.

Meanwhile in Eibar, Orkestra researchers were participating in the working session of May 18, in the organisation of the “OSDD session” (On-Site Deep Dive) of the S34GROWTH session which seeks to work on the renewal of European industry and competitiveness. Specifically, Orkestra presented a report on how to promote interregional collaboration via the use of different “policy instruments". Furthermore, during the session the participants worked on different specific actions that could be developed via the use of specific instruments such as “innovation vouchers, joint calls”.

The institute is involved in various projects (apart from the two already mentioned) to promote interregional cooperation and always responding to the challenges facing the Basque Country. Thus it has received support through the following programmes and projects: at the level of cross-border collaboration, it is developed under the POCTEFA programme and with the collaboration of the  SPRI and the participation of the Basque Government; the Competitiv’eko project of promotion of business cooperation based on specialisation in the territories of Navarra, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and the Basque Country.

The interregional focus of action embraces both regional and urban level. At a regional level and under the INTERREG EUROPE programme, along with the SPRI, ClusterS3 is developed for the promotion of Cluster policies for effective RIS3 implementation.

At an urban level and responding to the challenges facing Bilbao, work is being undertaken under the URBACT III programme alongside Bilbao Ekintza in Infocus to develop the urban dimension of specialisation strategies; and under the UIA programme AS FABRIK is being developed to improve the competitiveness of local companies and the consolidation of the Zorrotzaurre zone as an innovative ecosystem and a reference in the field of advanced services for the 4.0 industry and the digital economy.