THE INDUSTRY-SCIENCE RELATIONS THEMATIC WORKING GROUP

The establishment of effective Industry-Science Relations (ISRs) has been widely recognised as an essential condition for the development of regional innovation systems. Cooperation between research and the private sector has proved to have a relevant impact on the promotion and exploitation of research findings, on the development of knowledge-based companies and, ultimately, on the acceleration of the process of knowledge generation and diffusion at regional level. Despite the existence of specific regional framework conditions affecting the reach and the intensity of ISRs, Regional Authorities can implement concrete and valuable initiatives in order to trigger co-operation levels in this field.

The ERIK Thematic Working Group on Industry-Science Relations, created during the first phase of the ERIK Network (2003-2005) and led by the Emilia-Romagna Region, has stimulated a mutual learning process on ISRs issues and on the regional mechanisms and tools supporting the development of interaction among regions especially for what concerns ERDF Regional Programmes of Innovative Actions (RPIAs). During the initial two-year life-span, the group has pursued this objective through information and knowledge exchange activities, the organisation and participation to network thematic events (i.e. workshops and study visits) across Europe and the development of a methodology for the analysis of regional initiatives in the area of Industry-Science Relations, included in a Working Group Thematic Paper.

The Thematic Paper describes the overall focus of the TWG activities and outlines 4 sub-dimensions of analysis, corresponding to the most relevant areas of interaction between Industry and Science:
  • Collaborative Research between Industry and Science
  • Start-ups from Public Science
  • Interaction in the field of human capital (mobility of researchers and cooperation in education and training activities)
  • Technology Transfer from Public Science to Industry

The ISR Working Group currently sees the active participation of the following partner and associate regions: Emilia-Romagna (I), Tuscany (I), Sicily (I), Lower Austria (A), West-Midlands (UK), Alentejo (P), Aragon (ES), Valencia (ES), Flanders (B), Bremen (D), South Holland (NL), Västra Götaland (S) and Småland and islands represented by the Regional Council in Kalmar County (S).

Under ERIK+, the Working Group has further concentrated on the collection, comparison and analysis of regional good practices selected among Regional Programmes and Projects of Innovative Actions and other regional schemes supporting the development of Industry-Science links. A Call for Good Practices on ISR has been launched in April 2006 and promoted among all 143 European regions managing or having managed a RPIA. The exercise brought to the insertion in ERIK on-line data base of 17 Good Practices proposed by 8 different European regions, out of which 11 relating to a RPIA and the remaining 6 to other innovation regional programmes/initiatives. All Good Practices can be downloaded from ERIK website database. Following the collection of Good Practices, a meeting in Wien in May 2006 has been organised attended by 12 European regions with the purpose of evaluating the practices according to the following criteria:
  • Being a real laboratory for innovation
  • Bringing to an improvement of Innovation policies
  • Providing a positive impact on the regional economic system
  • Having a positive impact on regional relationships
  • Providing an improvement of quality level of regional services
  • Being effective in relation to the expected results

And also according to the following indicators specifically related to the ISR theme:
  • Research thematic focus definition in collaborative research
  • No. of researchers and companies involved in collaborative research and no. of new jobs created
  • No. of Intellectual Property Rights resulting from collaborative research activities carried out
  • Services and infrastructures fostering the use of Intellectual Property Rights
  • No. of technology-based academic start ups created
  • No. of new jobs created supporting academic technology based start-ups
  • Matching company needs with competences available inside Universities and research organizations
  • No. of researchers involved in mobility schemes introduced through the Programme/Action/Project compared to the total number of researchers at regional level
  • No. of people within University involved in training activities inside companies financed through the Programme/Action/Project
  • No. of participating SMEs supporting mobility initiatives and/or cooperation in training activities in relation to the total number of SMEs at regional level
  • No. of innovative products, processes and services resulting from mobility of researchers and/or cooperation in training activities inside participating companies
  • No. of new jobs created through mobility of researchers and/or cooperation in training activities inside participating companies
  • Technology Transfer Institutions and/or services supporting technology transfer from Public Science to Industry

The evaluation resulted in the selection of the two Good Practices: “OPTOMED - Innovative technologies in Ophthalmology” (from Tuscany-Italy) and “SIDEUM” (from Småland med öarna-Sweden) considered the best and the most innovative ones out of the 17 collected. These two good examples will be further detailed in ERIK+ Final Publication that will be available on ERIK website from end of April 2007 and will be presented in occasion of ERIK+ Final Conference to be held in Brussels on 10th – 11th May 2007.

Moreover, a third region, Flanders-Belgium, has been selected for the innovativeness and interesting ISR practices proposed, to host the project study visit that took place in Brussels and Ghent on 5th – 6th September 2006 (more information can be found in the Study Visit section of ERIK website). In addition, a workshop on ISR results will be organised in occasion of ERIK+ Final Conference of next May presenting to a wide audience the activities carried out and a selection of the ISR case studies collected. An exhibition area during the 2-day-event will be also the occasion to know more about the practices and the regional contexts were they were developed.

Final step of the work of the ISR Thematic Working Group will be then that of promoting the Good Practices to other regional contexts by means of the Final Publication, the Final Conference, ERIK Newsletter and other articles and public events so as to facilitate a dialogue at European level on the importance of ISR and on the regional initiatives developed other regions could get inspiration from.

Further information on the Industry-Science Relations Working Group is available from Ms Giorgia Valli ( erik@aster.it ), Aster - Via Gobetti, 101 - Bologna (Italy)