Industrial transition

Industry 4.0 is redefining the industrial sector thanks to the adoption of new digital technologies, new materials, and new processes. For policymakers, the concept of Industry 4.0 is at the top of their agendas as it could spur huge productivity gains, redefine the whole industrial production model and also potentially have a major impact on manufacturing employment. The European Commission is implementing ambitious industrial policies to address many policy challenges hindering the diffusion of Industry 4.0 technologies such as the low adoption rate from SMEs and increased competition from outside the European Union.

In this novel industrial paradigm, regions are ideal spaces for policy experimentation and Interreg Europe projects provide an opportunity for interregional policy learning. This policy brief features six policy recommendations using the experience of Interreg Europe projects dealing with Industry 4.0 to offer regions relevant lessons to enrich their own transformative efforts.

The Policy Learning Platform received a policy helpdesk request to acquire more information on digital ecosystems, digital transformation, remote working and co-working spaces. Explore the answer provided by Research and innovation Thematic Expert, Arnault Morisson. 

Policy insights 1: Digital Innovation Ecosystems

Two Interreg Europe projects are particularly active in promoting the effective delivery of policies to support digital innovation ecosystems, namely:

• NEXT2MET focuses on policies and measures to increase the uptake of soft digitalisation measures.
• CARPE DIGEM aims to promote Digital Innovation Ecosystems in peripheral and less- advanced European regions.

The two Interreg Europe projects have generated many good practices, discover the NEXT2MET good practices and the CARPE DIGEM good practices. 

In NEXT2MET, the good practice on multi-fund development of digital hubs/co-working spaces in rural areas could be of interest to you. The good practice focuses on a multi-fund approach (local, national and European funding) to address the lack of digital infrastructures in the Midland Region (Ireland) by providing co-working spaces with fully equipped amenities. European funds (WiFi4EU) were used with regional funds from the Department of Rural and Community Development to establish WI-Fi into public spaces. At the same time, LEADER Program provided other funds to develop digital/co- working space in the areas selected for the Broadband Connection Points (BCPs) initiative. The good practice shows that the creation of physical digital infrastructures and co-working spaces can be a lever of economic regeneration for towns and villages located in rural areas.

In CARPE DIGEM, the Mission Numérique PNM - Lormes Rural Digital Hub offers a fab-lab, digital service, and co-working services in a rural village in France. The good practice will be featured in our webinar on rural innovation on Friday 15 July 2021.

Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform organised a webinar on digital innovation ecosystems on Tuesday 25 February 2021. Sandro D’Elia, DG Connect, presented the current EU digital policy priorities, especially with regards to digital innovation hubs. Cristian Gotia, West ARD Romania, presented the good practice concerning the Monitoring of the Arad City Digital Strategy. Claus Zeppelzauer, from ECOPLUS Austria shared the good practice House of Digitalisation.

Our policy brief on

 could be of interest to you as skills are essential for digital innovation ecosystems. On July 2020, the European Commission presented the European Skills Agenda, a five-year plan that drives Covid-19 economic recovery focusing on human capital, employment and social policies to help individuals and businesses develop new skills for the twin transition toward digital technology and climate neutrality. The necessity of telework and virtual- learning due to Covid-19 pandemic is currently accelerating the process of digital transition. On the other hand, it is accentuating the gap related to digital skills, creating new inequalities for accessing job and education and compromising career opportunities for many people.

Policy insights 2: Co-working spaces and remote working

Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform has written two articles on co-working spaces featuring two good practices. One article takes the example of SPARK Demo in Tartu, Estonia. The other article titled, how to foster collaborative spaces in rural areas takes the example of the good practice KIKŠTARTER in Slovenia.

The article on collaborative spaces in rural areas highlights that when planning such spaces and strategies in rural and peri-urban areas, practitioners and policymakers should consider the following three points:

• The creation of a space like KIKŠTARTER to promote entrepreneurship is more relevant for towns with 10,000 to 30,000 inhabitants that do not already possess such innovation infrastructure.
• As illustrated by KIKŠTARTER, leadership and quadruple helix arrangements are a good way to rally local actors around a common vision for the town.
• Spaces like this could include, spaces for fabrication, 3-D workshops, FabLabs, and Makerspace, as lower rents in rural and peri-urban towns can offer a competitive advantage for setting such relatively large fabrication spaces for entrepreneurs.

You could also be interested in our online discussion on FabLabs and makerspaces and the presentation of Tomas Diez on Fab Lab Barcelona, Fab City Initiative, and the Fab Academy. Cities have lost the capacity to create products and to grow food. Fab Lab Barcelona contributes to rediscovering how to produce and consume in cities. Fab Lab Barcelona participates in multiple European projects. Fab Academy teach students how to make (almost) anything without going to MIT in Boston, United States. Tomas Diez points out that 'FabLabs are not aimed to replace industries but to accelerate the transition towards local production using existing industrial capacities'.

In Interreg Europe project P-IRIS, the project partners have discussed about the lessons learnt when establishing co-working spaces in rural areas. They note, for instance, that rural coworking spaces create stronger and committed local community and because of new remote-working and studying culture rural areas can benefit in the future.

Follow-up opportunities with the Policy Learning Platform 

Finally, we encourage you to follow-up with us when addressing your policy challenges. For instance, we could organise a matchmaking session with you and your regional managing authorities. A matchmaking session lasts around 1,5 hours and is a thematic discussion hosted by Interreg Europe and moderated by an expert in the field. The discussions are designed around the policy needs and questions that you put forward. These meetings can be organised in person and online. They are a great opportunity to meet like-minded peers and get inspiration from good practices in other parts of Europe.

Technology Foresight can be seen as “a systematic exercise aimed at looking into the longer-term future of science, technology, and innovation in order to make better-informed policy decisions” (Pietrobelli and Puppato). The speed of technological change and the emergence of disruptive technologies continuously transform regional industrial structures. As a result, Technology Foresight emerged to respond to this rising complexity to foresee, shape and direct potential future orientation of technological change. Technology Foresight involves a wide range of actors such as the public sector, experts, industry, and civil society to define and to prepare for a joint vision of the future. 

Technology Foresight involves a wide range of activities such as panels, scenario workshops, brainstorming, consensus building, horizon scanning, trend analysis, anticipation, forecasting, systematic looking ahead, forward-looking activities, strategic intelligence, futures research, or technology road mapping (Pietrobelli and Puppato). The activities aim to predict the future, influence technology direction and hence to “make the future happen” through a participatory approach to ensure the inclusion of a wide range of actors to build legitimacy (Miles). This approach for collectively exploring, anticipating and shaping the future can be pursued at international, national, regional, local or sectoral level (Nesta). 

Foresight can serve to provide guidance in shaping innovation policies and can be used as a tool to support measures such as prioritisation, networking and/or articulation of challenges (Nesta). Foresight exercises can reorient and update innovation policies while anticipating emerging technological changes and grand societal challenges. Technology Foresight exercises can, however, face failures. For instance, coordination and communication drawbacks arise when stakeholders have different knowledge and views on the importance of research and innovation on a given territory. Market and political failures can also happen due to short-sighted and short-term interests and gains compared to the long-term perspective needed in research and innovation policies (Pietrobelli and Puppato).

Many local and regional policy makers in Europe make use of technology foresight to develop innovation policies. Interreg Europe projects such as HIGHER, INNO INDUSTRY, S3CHEM and STEPHANIE allowed them to exchange on their approaches and to learn from the experiences of others. They have learned from successful initiatives with tangible and measurable results that have the potential to be transferred to regions, and in some cases their increased knowledge has brought to the introduction of policy changes in their own territory. 

Technology Foresight can be used in the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) to select the right granularity of the regional Smart Specialisation Strategies (RIS3). In S3CHEM, the Roadmap for the Regional Agenda of Sustainable Materials for Asturias aims to prioritise activities in the sector of sustainable materials. The Economic Development Agency of Asturias (IDEPA) and the Association of Chemical and Process Industries of Asturias (AIQPA) launched a roadmap to draft the Regional Agenda for Research and Innovation in Sustainable Materials that included working groups involving the most relevant regional stakeholders to identify the main markets and value chains in sustainable materials. 

Technology Foresight can rally a wide range of actors to work together on S3 priorities. In HIGHER, the Strategic Research and Innovation Partnerships (SRIPs) are long-term partnerships focusing on nine areas related to Industry 4.0, the digital economy, and the circular economy, that involve quadruple-helix actors—private companies, public institutions, universities, and civil society. The nine areas were selected according to the Slovenia Smart Specialisation Strategy (S4). The SRIPs work on each thematic area to coordinate R&D activities, network internationally, share capacities and knowledge, and develop human resources. Each SRIP, which is piloted by different institutions, must devise its strategic roadmaps to achieve a higher competitive position not only through technological foresight but also through identifying regulatory framework changes. 

Technology Foresight can offer a systematic methodological approach for the strategic design of S3. In STEPHANIE, Strategic planning through stakeholders’ involvement describes the methodology adopted for the strategic design of Tuscany’s Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3). The design methodology has involved regional stakeholders through a 5-step model for strategic planning that included (1) a foresight exercise by innovation poles on regional, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) to develop scientific and technological roadmaps, (2) external experts assessments of the roadmaps, (3) thematic workshops to validate roadmaps, (4) drafting the S3 with institutional contexts, priorities, and action plans, and (5) validation of the S3 by international peer regions. The S3 strategic design included many meetings, workshops, and sessions forming the core of the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP). The good practice highlights the importance to engage external experts to validate and legitimate strategic choices in the roadmaps and foresight exercises and limit vested private interests. 

Technology Foresight can be used to identify future skills for innovation. In INNO INDUSTRY, the National project Sector Driven Innovations (NP SRI) is an initiative to monitor labour market needs, labour shortages, to identify how technologies will affect the labour market, to perform foresight exercises on future of jobs up to 2030 and the impacts on job functions, employment levels and skills. The initiative is piloted by the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of Slovak Republic and is managed by the private agency Trexima Bratislava Ltd. The initiative also strengthens 24 Sector Skills Councils (SSC) to enable them to identify and anticipate relevant skills and human resource strategies in specific sectors. The good practice offers many insights for policymakers who aim to design an integrated strategy to perform foresight exercises on the future of jobs in specific sectors. Additionally, it also informs on a potential way forward to make evidence-based decisions on concrete strategic measures and actions to upskill or reskill workers such as with higher education institutions and vocational schools. 

Technology Foresight can strengthen clusters. In REGIONS4FOOD, ART-ER introduced a policy change to strengthen the Clust-ER Agri-food. ART-ER, the regional development agency in Emilia Romagna (IT) coordinates the Clust-ERs, communities of public and private entities for interdisciplinary knowledge and strategic opportunities. Learning from Interreg Europe partners from REGIONS4FOOD—namely good practices such as the Masters in Digital Agriculture and Agri-Food Innovation from Andalusia, Spain, and the Agro Living Lab in South Ostrobothnia, Finland—ART-ER identified the need to foster collaboration between the Clust-ER Agrifood and other relevant stakeholders, such as the Clust-ER Innovate, to promote quadruple helix cooperation from the farm to the fork, and to identify multidisciplinary skills and profiles. ART-ER and the regional government introduced a call for Clust-ERs in July 2020 to promote inter-Cluster-ER collaboration, skill foresight analysis and multidisciplinary skills through training for quadruple-helix actors. 

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