Accelerate GDT Partners invited to PLP Workshop in Bilbao
Accelerate GDT partners MTU, ACCIÓ, and Duisburg Business & Innovation (DBI) were invited to share project learnings from their regions on the 6th and 7th of November 2024 at the Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform’s industrial transformation workshops in Bilbao, Spain.
Since the Green Deal Industrial Plan, set out by the European Commission in 2020, policies and programmes at national, regional and local levels have been deployed to respond to the need for a deep industrial transformation in all territories of the European Union.
In the European context, industrial transformation is connected to highly knowledge-based economies and is linked to the development and successful uptake of innovative digital and green technologies. It therefore requires an efficient valorisation of research. The event, organised over two days in Bilbao analyses the tight connection between transition and research valorisation:
Workshop 1 6-11-24: Explore the policies driving the triple transition—digital, green, and resilient—key to shaping the future of our industries.
Workshop 2 7-11-24: Discover the vital role of research valorisation within regional innovation ecosystems, emphasising the strong collaboration between industry and academia
The event brought together 45 participants from all over Europe, to discuss, debate and share good practices and concrete examples of policies related to industrial transition and research valorisation.
The workshop began with a framing of the agenda on the 6th of November was hosted by Luc Schmerber and René Tönnisson, who are both thematic experts for Smarter Europe, Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform, in collaboration with Jason Martinez, Projects Coordinator at Interreg Europe.
On the 6th In a session ‘Regional Transformation Processes,’ Anna Steinmeier, Duisburg Business & Innovation GmbH, presented ‘From Dark to Grey to Green,’ where she reflected on how the region of Duisburg and Ruhr transformed from a coal mining region to a sustainable economy.
In a separate session ‘supporting the transformation of specific sectors,’ John Hobbs, Munster Technological University and Emma Vendrell, ACCIÒ had the opportunity to share how the Accelerate GDT project is realigning cluster policies to accelerate industrial transformation and provided specific examples from the Energy and Fashion Clusters who are part of the Catalonia Cluster Programme.
The Research Valorisation workshop on the 7-11-24 was led by Marc Pattinson and Arnault Morisson, thematic experts for Smarter Europe, Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform, in collaboration with Jason Martinez, Projects Coordinator at Interreg Europe.
This was followed up by a session, European initiatives for research valorisation, Overall policy, Competence Centres and the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) which was contributed to by Iiro Eerola, European Commission; Vilma Puriene, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University and Elvira Domingo, EIT Food.
This was followed by a learning through experience: University-Industry collaboration which took the form of a group working session, where participants were asked to discuss the policy challenges and opportunities related to university-industry collaboration and research valorisation in participant’s regions.
John Hobbs, Munster Technological University found the group working session to be extremely valuable and had the opportunity to share clustering being a relevant economic tool for increasing industry and academic collaboration. Dr Hobbs shared how “Cyber Ireland, Ireland’s national cyber security cluster is hosted in the Munster Technological University but its board of directors and strategy is led by its industry members. However, its connections and roots into academia are solidified by the hosting of the cluster in MTU and through its connections to all other academic institutes engaged in cyber across Ireland. These connections help Cyber Ireland to be a bridge and connect industry with academia in relation to research, skilled workforce and continuous professional development (CPD)”