The EU has launched a call to help regions collaborate to develop resilience and build on green and digital transformation for the post-coronavirus recovery.
The European Commission (EC) has launched a call for thematic partnerships to pilot interregional innovation projects that support the response and recovery following the coronavirus pandemic. The goal is to support local economies in dealing with the consequences of the crisis. The focus on health, tourism, sustainability and digitalisation reflects the EC’s priorities and the needed response to counteract the effects of the coronavirus crisis.
In this call the European Commission seeks expressions of interest from transnational partnerships of regional authorities and other stakeholders as universities, research centres, clusters and SMEs willing to pilot interregional innovation partnerships aimed at facilitating the commercialisation and scale-up of interregional innovation projects and to incentivise business investment. The four thematic areas cover development of the medical value chain, from conception to distribution, the safety and management of medical waste, encouraging sustainable and digital tourism, and developing hydrogen technologies in carbon-intensive regions.
The selected partnerships are to have defined by end of 2021 a set of actions to accelerate innovation uptake, commercialisation and scale-up of interregional investment projects. They should also develop cooperation with other EU programmes and initiatives. In addition, the selected actions will have to collaborate with partnerships already launched under the umbrella of the thematic smart specialisation platforms.
This call follows on the previous EC actions on strengthening innovation in Europe’s regions, in particular the pilot action on interregional innovation projects. Eight interregional partnerships were selected in late 2017, with one or several coordinating regions in the lead. An additional partnership on batteries was introduced at a later stage. In addition to hands-on EC support on optimising use of EU funds, each partnership could benefit from external advisory service up to a value of €100’000 via European Regional Development Fund for demonstration, scale-up and commercialisation activities.
Given this positive experience since 2017, the Commission decided to use the same line to stimulate regions joining forces to react to the coronavirus pandemic. The overall budget is €400’000 from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to develop four thematic partnerships in the focus areas mentioned above (up to €100’000 per partnership).