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Veneto R. Law 13/2014 "Industrial districts, regional innovative networks and business aggregations"
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About this good practice
The problem addressed was the need for production districts to interact organically with local institutions. These clusters of enterprises have historically characterized the Veneto area and arose spontaneously. Also, there was the will to increase spending on research and development by promoting the growth of cooperation between companies and research bodies.
To achieve these objectives, criteria have been established to identify industrial districts, regional innovative networks and business aggregations; the representatives in the region and other relevant public administrations have been defined and specific tenders have been foreseen to select and finance development projects presented by these subjects.
Regional Innovative Networks are made of businesses and public and private research entities, which cooperate according to a trans-sectoral or multi-sectoral approach.
Industrial Districts are production systems located within a limited area of the regional territory, characterized by a high concentration of companies (mainly SMEs) that operate on specific production chains.
Business aggregations represent networks of companies established for common strategic projects, implemented by at least three companies.
The main beneficiaries are companies and research organizations (universities and other public and private research bodies), involved stakeholders are trade union representatives, Chamber of Commerce, other territorial or local bodies and civil society.
Resources needed
No funds were directly used to create the law
Evidence of success
21 Regional Innovative Networks identified
15 Industrial Districts identified
6 calls for tenders with ERDF funding issued
4 tenders issued with financing from regional funds
The RIN tool is considered a good practice because it allows small and medium-sized enterprises to connect more closely with Europe and national and regional policies. Through the work of RINs, local and regional actors take a more active role in gathering and coordinating pan-European and inter-regional value networks.
Potential for learning or transfer
The spontaneous creation of business clusters is a phenomenon that also exists in other territories: companies that operate in the same sector are often located territorially close in order to support each other.
Similarly, the need may arise for a public administration to rationalize these systems, in order to improve the quality of interaction with local operators and create tenders based on the actual needs expressed by them.
The identification of the regional innovative network is an innovation policy tool capable of bringing out, with a bottom up approach, regional innovation ecosystems: the RINs are essentially identifiable as the clusters of the different European regions.
The strength of the RIN as identified in RL 13/2014 is to optimize the implementation of the regional smart specialization strategy by channeling available public resources into projects with high innovative potential.