02 April 2006 Connected regions - Building the knowledge infrastructure of the future Report of Successful Regions Brainstorming In today’s knowledge economy personal contacts and professional networks are what rail tracks were for the industrial revolution or what roads are for European trade. Along such information highways regions cooperate with other regions and establish the knowledge infrastructure of the future. Connected regions, thus, tend to be more successful than less connected regions: “Connected regions are those that have high-levels of cooperation, which in turn increases their innovation potential and brings about high impact for the region” (Ian Hill, EU Policy and Development Officer Cumbria County Council, UK). In this sense, INTERREG IIIC is not only a programme that addresses regional disparities across Europe but it can also be considered a key factor for innovation. This view is supported by many regional experts, among them Veit Haug (Director International Relations, Stuttgart Region Economic Development Corporation), who says that, for instance, in his region “we are running 14 competence centers to boost innovation and help our SMEs to stay ahead of the game. These centers are gaining in importance thanks to being involved in European innovation policy and interregional cooperation”. According to another expert, Bertram Harendt (Head of Technology Development Unit, Thüringen State Development Corporation), Europe’s regions “should see Interregional Cooperation as an investment to maximize their benefits derived from the European Union.” And Gál Kormendy (Regional Development Agency of Western-Hungary) is convinced that “Managing to cooperate with other regions is as much a part of the success of European regions as individual competitiveness factors” If interregional cooperation can be such a critical factor in competitiveness and innovation, why are some regions employing the programme for their needs more than others? In fact, differences between Europe’s regions are astonishing ranging from very few projects to involvement in as many as 40 or more INTERREG IIIC operations. The good news here of course is that 99% of Europe’s regions participate in at least one INTERREG IIIC project, indicating an extremely good coverage rate of the programme. But at this point “we simply do not know enough about the factors that make some European regions more successful than others”, says Barbara Di Piazza, Head of the JTS EAST. “There is some work ahead of us to figure this out. This will also enable us to provide services to the regions that will help them to make the best out of interregional cooperation”. To help understand the critical success factors and start developing measures to encourage a more balanced participation of regions, the JTS East brainstormed with six regional development experts. During this event, the experts contributed their personal experience, helped generate recommendations for capitalisation actions specifically addressing low performing regions and provided input on potential measures for the next Structural Funds programming period. The meeting took place in Vienna on 28 February 2006. Defining ‘success of regions in interregional cooperation’ is not an easy task, of course. One way to look at success is to clearly distinguish between the participation rate in the programme and the regional impact actually achieved through the participation. Ian Hill: "As inter-regional practitioners, we want more regions to become connected regions, and of course we want the benefits to be felt at a regional level." In other words, regions do not only differ in the participation rate, they also seem to differ widely in their abilities to design and implement projects that really matter on a regional level, exhibit high policy relevance and stand good chances to influence regional development and policies (e.g., in support of the Lisbon and Gothenburg goals). For this reason, any effort to help upgrade the ‘networking factor’ of regions, should focus on both optimising participation rates and ensuring high impact on regional policies. Depending on the network characteristics of a given region, measures may be grouped as follows: · Improving quality, i.e. making sure that interregional actions focus on benefits and impacts. · Building capacity, i.e. ensuring that actors have the skills, knowledge and resources to participate in a meaningful and beneficial way. · Spreading the benefits, i.e. broadening the experience of, and participation in, inter-regional programmes to widen participation amongst actors. It was further recognised that, apart from a few highly experienced experts, many actors in Europe need support and assistance in project development and implementation. “We need a change in paradigm in interregional cooperation. The development of Human capital should be seen as the main element of all support measures.” (Ditha Brickwell, independent expert). For this reason, the future of the Interregional Cooperation programme should include a capacity-building or human capital development strand that would help build the capacity of actors and network managers and improve project development, through project development guidelines, seminars and workshops as well as project management training. This strand should also involve knowledge-building activities that would contribute, for instance, to getting to a clear understanding on what success in regional development means and how it can be measured. Support could be given by providing online tools, such as a web forum, which offers not just a partner search facility, but also a chat space where potential project managers can post questions to which experienced managers can provide answers; and a “good-practice Google” that would make Good Practices comparable and searchable electronically. To be successful and yield maximum impact for the EU and the participating regions interregional cooperation needs to be supported by a large number of stakeholders and interest groups in the regions willing to engage in innovative exercises with comparatively uncertain outcome. For instance, cooperation projects are not possible without support and genuine interest by regional politicians, who also play a key role in making regional resources for co-financing available. Experience shows that successful regions tend to have effective stakeholder networks within the region or country as well as with the outside world. In the regional or national context, networks connect various interest groups, different levels of government as well as various economic sectors. In the European context, networks provide regions with access to the larger European knowledge pool, often a key factor for internationalisation, knowledge transfer and innovation. To be successful in interregional cooperation regions also need to have a general feeling of ownership of the programme and project goals and a sincere commitment to the Lisbon and Gothenburg goals. Creating a sense of ownership already starts in the programming phase: “For the programming the JTS should organise a widespread stakeholder consultation to strengthen the ownership of the future programme. In this sense it is also very important to get the politicians on board, for instance by cooperating more closely with the Committee of the Regions” (Hartmut Siemon, Acting Partner, BRIDGES Consulting Public Affairs & Management GmbH). Participating experts: Gal Körmendy, West-Pannonian Regional Development Agency (Hungary); Veit Haug, Stuttgart Region Development Corporation (Germany); Bertram Harendt, Thüringen Development Agency (Germany); Ian Hill, European Office, Cumbria Region (UK); Ditha Brickwell and Hartmut Siemon, Regional Development Consultants, (Austria and Germany).