8xS3 = Intelligent Romania

The project was initiated by the three largest and most active clusters in the North-West Region supporting the formulation of alternative public policies that would support innovation and competitiveness at the regional and national level. The alternative policies are targeting three different areas, corresponding to priority fields of specialization at the regional level: Digitalization – IT sector, SMEs internationalization – by the furniture industry, alternative public procurement – by the agro-food industry.
The novelty of the project refers to 1) the initiators of the alternative public policies formulation were three active clusters that represent three flagship industries at the regional level (included in RIS3), and 2) the proposal of three alternative policies in three different industries, distinguishing between each industry’s specificities. As such, the project consisted of a long analysis and consultation stage throughout the region, involving all types of stakeholders and territories, with the support of a team of experts in competitiveness and public policies. This stage (analysis, consultations and experts work) resulted in three main challenges – digitalization, internationalization and public procurement, that the clusters’ team transformed into alternative policies and concrete examples of measures to be implemented in a second stage of the project.