InnoCoop – fostering innovation-oriented business cooperation of SMEs

Rural areas in Europe are often characterised by depopulation, economic stagnation, low and concentrated growth, often coupled with disadvantages. Lagging of rural regions is caused by low innovation capacity and the outflow of skilled labour force.

Rural regions often suffer from poor innovation governance: low density of SMEs makes cooperation, clustering difficult. Business support organisations must play a key role, however public funding is inevitable. Linkages along the edges of the quadruple helix are often mixing, particularly weak is the cooperation between the SMEs and the academic sector.

Overall objective: Innovation-oriented business cooperation in the project area needs forward looking intervention due to multiple challenges, both within and across borders in order to improve the cooperative attitude, provision of support and inclination of SMEs to expand their market opportunities.