Innovation Support-presentation

The North-West Regional Development Agency pursues, through its projects to increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of the region by creating an innovation support system at regional level and by the promotion of an innovation culture. As a result of the analyses carried out, together with the regional partners, the problems of the Research-Development-Innovation sector were identified, problems that were transformed in objectives for 2007-2013.
The purpose of the innovation support activities carried out by the North-West RDA is to capitalize on the Research & Development & Innovation activities, in order to transform them in commercial activities.
The first large scale project of this kind is the creation of the Regional Institute for Education, Research and Technological Transfer.

Trial Projects REGIS-NW

While processing the Regional Innovation Strategy, the North-West RDA team, together with the regional partners, has identified some strategic trial projects for the research-development-innovation area that will contribute to the achievement of the aims put forward in the Strategy.
Among these, one of the most important is the Regional Institute of Education, Research and Technological Transfer, a project started in 2007, that will soon begin its activity in full force and aims to bridge the gap between the public authorities, the academic and research sector as well as the business environment. The institute was conceived in the form of a joint-stock company and the shareholders are the local and county administrative bodies of the region, the state universities and an association of companies, having issued and paid in share 187.600 RON. The Regional Institute will operate on three main platforms, namely the area of education, of research and of technological transfer. The functional fields will include activities of identifying and preparing the necessary documentation for the acknowledgement and the authorization of some new professions, of developing the curricula for the educational products destined to adults, for professional specialization and re-specialization according to the needs of the market. We envisage the development of new joint service packages for postgraduate education, the development of a regional platform for e-learning, activities that target technological transfer and support innovation through new products, materials and services.
At the same time, as part of the Institute, a Regional Network of Technological Transfer and Development will be set up that is going to be a network of offices that ensure contact with the industry on a structural basis, their objective being to establish, maintain and extend the relations between the suppliers of the results in research and development and the social-economic sector / the economic agents so as to facilitate the technological transfer.
The activities of the support network will mostly include the development of the priority sectors at regional level, namely: IT&C, high level education and research, tourism, agriculture, food industry and consumer goods (furniture and clothing), car industry. According to the development opportunities that are specific for the region being attended to, the network will promote diversified areas by the involvement and cooperation of its members.

RIERTT Project Factory is special and distinct division within the Institute that will concentrate on issuing investment project proposals, especially focusing on urban regeneration, business infrastructure / research and tourism, that on the one hand requires the involvement of local human resources, well prepared and equipped with the necessary competences, while on the other hand it attracts a strategic partner that brings the experience and expertise of the European markets.

Another major project will be the establishment of the Competitiveness Pole “The Fortress of Science” in the Northern Transylvanian Region in Cluj that requires a large partnership (association) of the local public authorities, the research suppliers (universities, R&D institutions, ONGs with R&D profile), research-development-innovation facilitators (training centers, entities ensuring technological transfer) and an international strategic partner, a beneficiary of the research (enterprises or associated companies) with a strong technical competence, having the above mentioned Institute as an administrator. The area of activity on which this pole will concentrate on will be subject to common agreement among the consortium members, based on the regional priorities, the undertaken realistic analysis and taking into account the potentials of the region. This will have to be fitted within one of the following priority areas: health, agriculture, safety and security within the food industry, energy, environment or innovative materials, products or processes.

Another strategic project, that also reunites the Central (Macro-region 1) and North-West Regions, having as partners the institutions involved in regional development processing and within which North-West RDA has a coordinating role, is BISNet Transilvania.
This project aims to create the Support Network for Business and Innovation for SMEs in Transylvania and it will be linked to the European Enterprise Network as well as to similar European networks. The network presents innovative elements as the majority of the member networks of the EEN in Europe have been created based on the structure of the two previous networks: Innovation Relay Centers and EuroInfor Centers, the BISNet partners are RDAs, universities, a research center, a business incubator and a bank. The network comes to support SMEs, especially through consultancy services, by meeting need of the enterprises with the technology on offer, by pointing out the business opportunities, by facilitating encounters between the supplying companies, the producers and the distributors across all Europe, by offering personalized assistance, by conducting needs analyses and market researches for enterprises, by technological auditing, through trainings offered to entrepreneurs on relevant topics, by facilitating participation to fairs and exhibitions, counseling regarding development project proposals and access to financing.
A series of projects, implemented in partnership with European organizations and institutions, eligible as part of the territorial cooperation programmes of the European Union, will focus on developing the clusters of the region of the type: Mass Customization Project, the completion of which presupposes a partnership at a European level among countries that can export the model of good practice and countries that are capable to adopt this and to achieve a personalized transfer of it to the local market. The project comes to help SMEs by offering personalized products and services to a limited market sector, increasing the level of innovation of the products and services and implicitly increasing the added value and conquering markets in accordance with the chosen sector through an extension to a unique market provided by the extension of the EU. The Innovation and Technological Transfer Centers will have to adopt this model which is meant to transfer technology to the final beneficiaries: the companies involved in production or provide services.

As well as the previously mentioned project, Cluster Network will be targeting cluster- type structures, more exactly the achievement of a good cooperation between clusters in order to facilitate commercial exchanges and to support the activities of, mostly, SMEs and their management. Based on analysis carried out in existing clusters, national and international seminars will be organized as part of the project, meant to encourage the globalization of enterprises and to help them achieve this goal. A training-model for the management of a cluster will be developed with the help of experts, business events will be organized at an international level, promoting new opportunities of cooperation among enterprises. At the end of the project at least one trial export consortium will be established, a practical result to back up the theoretical elements of the cooperation presented during the project.

The Clusternet project also targets cluster-type structures, but from a somewhat different perspective, the aim of the project being to improve the regional and local politics concerning innovation and the economics of knowledge by supporting various innovative initiatives put forth by SMEs in partnership with the research sector and by offering trainings sessions concerning interconnected areas. A cooperation between existing networks and clusters is intended, based on topics as research, education and assistance for the business sector, the stimulation of the local and regional protagonists to mobilize the endogenous potential and the traditional resources to assist innovation and to disseminate the idea of the importance of the economics of knowledge.

We can also mention the projects Innovative Technologies for a Better Society, Romanian-Norwegian cooperation project for education and development in Northern Transylvania, having as a partner SINTEF Norway – the biggest private research institute in Scandinavia, with branches in over 50 countries and around 2000 employees – which North-West RDA will collaborate with in order to have the Norwegian model of cooperation transferred to the North-West Region. The project will involve the transfer of the Norwegian cooperation model to the North-West Region and the development of a new, local model through adapting it to local needs. The model will be issued in the form of a document that will illustrate the most suitable regional development possibilities based on the experience of the Norwegian partners. There will be trainings and meetings organized between high-schools and the representatives of the industry, there will be needs analyses of companies and typology analyses of the existing relationship between education and industry. In the same time, using the Norwegian model, a new occupational standard will be developed, that of the Innovation Agent, who – thanks to the character of their work – will bring the research sector, the high school curricula, the vocational schools and universities closer to the economic sector and the needs of the enterprises. National and international experts will be involved to process the file of the occupational standard.

Last, but not least, the AsviLoc project, which aims to create a network of the Regional Development Agencies of South-Eastern Europe in order to build a transnational innovation system by capitalizing the results of the project, by adopting the good practices of the regional innovation strategies and by acting upon the institutional framework and the human resources. The project addresses the need of improving the relationship between protagonists of the innovation system, acting on the basis of a new approach within an environment where innovation is no longer a linear process but the result of complex interactions between the protagonists and the economic and social sector. The role of the Development Agencies is one of promoting innovation, creating a favorable environment for it by training the necessary human resources, mobilizing and creating networks among institutions and developing an essential cluster in what regards innovation requests as well as offers.